Carl Elliott tweeted a link to a lovely retrospective/review of Thomas Kuhn’s absolutely essential book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which as I noted on Twitter, in many ways sums up everything about my undergrad degree in the Comparative History of Ideas: if one is to understand Aristotelian science, one must know about the intellectual tradition within which Aristotle worked. A simple and elegant concept that completely revolutionized the way science — and the history of science — is taught.
Of course, it also dovetails with some other stuff I’ve been reading this week, and an idea I’ve been trying to work out. (Coming soon: talking about gun control because hey, we need more voices there!) Take a look, for example, at this week’s AAP/circumcision debate, the one that actually took down the Oxford servers this morning, so many people wanted to see what Practical Ethics had to say on the topic. As I mentioned in passing to Ananyo Bhattacharya (on Twitter), these conversations always contain so much more cultural baggage than anyone discusses; folks want to rely on science without looking at culture and history, which sets the scenario for endless debating around each other because even though the various “sides” of the debate are talking about the same subject, the language that they’re using to encode all the messages that they’re sending are extremely different.
And yet, it’s the top of the medical/science news cycle — and has been for a week. And this particular zombie horse will inevitably rise again and again for further kicking — why?
Iain Brassington makes some mention of it over on the Journal of Medical Ethics blog, and it ties back to Kuhn and the rabble rabble of potential paradigm shift: because it’s a sexy (okay, I realize the issue with using that to describe something about a penis, but look at it from a reporter point-of-view and don’t crucify me), generates simple snappy headlines, and plays in to the science news cycle, all of which generates the all-important click.
The problem is, at least within bioethics, is that we’re in that period of crisis of Kuhn’s cycle, where people are starting to act out against structural assumptions/dominant paradigm, but that the voice of “normal science” (or established bioethics/bioethicists, in this case) has been too loud. We’ve been seeing a critique of the shiny bioethics paradigm for years — the oldest one I can find it from 1986 (and I’m sure I’m just limited by my lack of university library access).
In the case of bioethics, the status quo is driven by more than just ideology — it’s driven by money. There’s a lot of money in the shiny, in biotechnology and stem cells and cloning and and and. These things are new and exciting and dramatic like a Hollywood movie — and if you play your cards right, you too can be on TV.
A few people have tried to force their perspective to becoming the expected revolutionary change in the field; they have (thankfully*) been unsuccessful. Which leaves us waiting for that something to tip us over into a new dominant paradigm, aware of the rabble rousers who are unhappily railing against the shiny tech money version of bioethics that dominates the field without having the out that, let’s be honest, the dominant paradigm of Kuhn’s work tells us that will happen.
All of which probably could have just been summed up as self-awareness is a bitch, but that’s a more interesting tweet than blog post, eh?
(* Why thankfully? A change in worldview for a field – the much abused “paradigm shift” – should be organic, not forced. Forced just plays in to the status quo of whomever has the power and ability to engineer the change.)
There’s that fabulous quote floating around about Ginger Rogers, saying that she “did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.” I must have heard that at a pretty young age and internalized it, because for a very long time, I had the attitude that I could do anything I wanted – and I could do it in a skirt. Pants not required. (In fact, it was only ziplining in Costa Rica that broke what was something like a 10 year record of not wearing pants.)
I mention this just to illustrate that, at a glance, you would not mistake me for anything other than a very femme woman (and given my preference for dating men, a heterosexual one). I currently have my nails painted Iron Man red, I rarely go out of the house without at least a little bit of makeup on, I can be easily distracted by shiny sparkly pretty things, and for being goth-inclined, I have a pretty unhealthy preference for pink.
So, on the surface of things, I am a pretty stereotypically normal woman. Except for one thing: I don’t want children. Continue reading
For various reasons, I’m re-reading this post, from six very long years ago. This part, in particular, has me in that “am I laughing or crying” zone:
The idea of codes and oaths, and the idea of good being unbreakably linked to excellence is an interesting idea; that you cannot parse them individually. A good surgeon is a surgeon who does not remove the wrong organs. To then take this goodness and link to ethics, though, I wonder? Can you be ethical if you’re bad at it? Well, can’t you be ethical, but incompetent? To have the good intent, but the bad skill?
I’m lounging in bed this morning, not so much hungover as sleep-deprived, and I’m trying to figure out how to put last night in to words. It’s a bit of a sorry state for a writer, but I have a good excuse: I was exposed to one of those things you always hear about but never think really exist, and then coming face-to-face with it rearranges your reality enough that you just have to stop.
What unicorn did I run in to? Philadelphia Geeks.
I mean, sure, I’d heard here and there that Philly had a vibrant geek community. There certainly seemed to be a lot of space for techies and co-work places and the like. And I’d seen some glimpses of the potential when I went to Mega-Bad Movie Night at the Academy of Natural Sciences.
But still. You know how it goes, right? You hear about great possibilities and then they don’t really live up to it. Or, worse – they’re misogynistic. And what with everything that recently happened with ReaderCon and Scalzi having to explain how not to be a creep, and the general continuing argument/debate over misogyny in geek/gaming communities (see, the internet, always), you can’t really blame a girl for being apprehensive – especially when a lot of the promotion for the geek scene comes from mostly a bunch of guys.
Well, they’re mostly a bunch of guys I owe a giant mea culpa and apology to. Tim, Eric and the rest of the Geekadelphia crew put together an amazing event: The Philadelphia Geek Awards. Last night was the second year of the awards, a black tie event held at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and it does just what it sounds like: celebrates the local geeks.
Except it did so much more than that.
Geek of the Year Tristin Hightower. See the full gallery of pictures at this link.Take a look at the nominees for hacker of the year. Stephanie Alarcon and Georgia Gutherie. Both women. The nominees for the Philly geek of the year? All women. And the rest of the nominees were healthily represented by not only women but Not Just White Dudes! (Which I admit I’m not going to focus on, but holy diversity! That was amazing – especially at the after party! In my PNW geek experience, you find the geeks by looking for the pasty group. At National Mechanics, you identified the geeks because they were dressed to the nines!)
Sure, you think – in categories where only women are nominated, clearly a woman will win. But look who took Local Annual Event of the Year: Women in Tech! To screams and ovations!
The scientist of the year, Dr. Youngmoo Kim, bragged about his wife having multiple degrees and just how sexy it was that she was smart. Female presenters got up and proudly declared they were scientists and engineers. It was actually rare to see an award on stage without a woman as a part of the team – and it was clear that the women weren’t tokens.
I know, I know. I’m gushing. But, geeky women – tell me, honestly. When’s the last time you were out at a bar and guys approached you asking what flavor of geek you were, and then wanted to talk about that? Sure, I got oogled – and I did a lot of oogling myself, because damn, Philly’s geeks (male and female) clean up nice! But I had conversations. I just want to emphasize this: I had conversations! In a bar! About Doctor Who and medicine and science and stem cells and MakerBots and Firefly and Joss Whedon and comic books and philosophy, all while drinking and dancing and – it was just a bar of geeks who wanted to be geeks!
If you don’t know how rare that is, you’re so lucky.
And I am so lucky to have seen that this kind of world can and does exist in Philadelphia. So thank you, Eric and Tim and Jill and everyone else involved in making last night happen, and for the many folks I talked to, drank with, and had an after-after party with, for making a bit more room for one more geeky girl.
Random Quote
Investigative reporting is a job where a little bit of malice goes a long way.
