With Great Power Comes Great Responsibilities

Looking back, our society has progressed a long way in terms of equality. From times when everyone but white men were heavily discriminated against to current times when, under law, all races and genders must be treated justly. While we still aren’t perfect, we have finally reached a point in time when equality is something that our society prides ourselves on. Why, then, do we still continually discriminate against homosexuals? Putting aside the religious argument, the discrimination against gays, like all other historical discriminations, can be traced back to ignorance. We are not only ignorant about the culture but also the definition of homosexuality and the “causes” of it. The problem is that people in positions of power, like leading scientists or public figures, are not only not refuting the wrong information, but they are the ones endorsing it. Take prominent Italian scientists, Gian Paolo Vanoli, for example. He claims that homosexuality is a disease. Certain substances in vaccines, Vanoli says, inhibit certain brain pathways therefore causing a person to be gay. The scientist does not blame people for being gay, he just believes that it is something we must cure before it becomes an epidemic. Even though this claim has been proven wrong time and time again by several different studies, Vanoli and other scientists still support it. Sadly their support is much more influential than a typical persons. This is because they are scientists and scientists are supposed to only state the truth. Therefore when Vanoli and other Italian scientists say homosexuality is a disease, countless numbers of people believe it, resulting in the discrimination of gays. This example reinforces the fact that, as scientists, we have power over common knowledge. People do not only listen to our findings, but they accept them as the truth and act on them. Therefore instead of immediately releasing every potential finding, like Vanoli did, we must first examine the societal impacts. If these impacts are too negative, such as leading to the discrimination of an entire group of people, then the release of the findings should be reconsidered. This would then result in a more just and cohesive society.

Confessions

         I have a confession: I hate Fox News. I cannot turn it one without cringing at every word that is uttered by one of the old white guys or young gorgeous women each of whom wear a pound of makeup. Where does this burning hatred stem from? Simple. Fox News’s blatant bias.

          Seriously, no matter what topic is being discussed, Fox cannot help but scream “conservative bias”. I’m not actually angered by their conservative viewpoint though. Instead, my fury comes from the fact that Fox advertises themselves as “fair and balanced”. This means that the people watching Fox believe that they are receiving all sides of the story, when, in fact, they are only getting a very narrow perspective. This results in a very misinformed, unknowledgeable audience. These misinformed people then make decisions, like who will be our next president, based on the bias, sometimes even wrong information they received from the news, therefore affecting the rest of us.

         Now, Fox has two ways it diminish my hatred. The first way is fairly simple. Just change the slogan. Saying Fox News is fair and balanced is a lie that directly leads to a misinformed society. If changing the slogan is too difficult though, Fox can always take the second option, which is to truly make the news fair and balanced. This does not mean they have to get rid of their bias. It simply means that they have to provide their audience with the facts from each side, which they can then comment on as they wish. Providing the facts at least gives the people a base of which they can form opinions and make well-informed decisions.

         

Fair and Balanced?

In the mid-1990’s Fox News was created as an alternative to the popular liberal media. Murdoch and other creators advertised the new station as the news source that was “fair and balance”. Setting aside the fact that Fox is actually completely bias, this slogan raises the question: should news always be balanced? Your first response to this question is probably “of course! News should report all the facts and sides of every story.” While this style of reporting is great for some stories, it actually is very problematic in science media.

         The issue of balance in science media arises from the fact that no matter how certain a scientific discovery is, there will always be a small group of individuals that oppose it. Take global warming for example; even though the connection between the emissions of green house gases and rising temperatures has been proven time and time again, there are still a few people that adamantly deny it. Even though these deniers are usually few and far between, the balance aspect of news requires that their ideas receive just as much media coverage as the ideas of the majority. This balance leads to the public taking sides, when, in reality, there is only one side that science and the majority of experts support. Therefore hindering the scientific literacy of the public.

         As a science writer myself I am not fully against a balance story, but I do believe you have to go about it with great tact. We still have the obligation, just as other reporters, to report all sides of the story. Where our jobs differ though, is that we have to make sure to address the validity of each side. We must make it known that even though some people oppose the science, these people do not have any really ground to stand on. By explaining all sides of the issue, the readers will be more likely to accept the true science and also be able to decipher what the true science is in the future, which would increase our nations scientific literacy. 

Old White Guys

As much as I like to consider myself as individualistic and an “out-of-the-box” thinker, I sadly failed to be original when drawing my stereotypical scientist. Before I even picked up a pen, I knew that I was going to draw an old white male with crazy hair and scarily curious eyes just like the majority of people, from children to adults to my own peers. Even though my actually drawing looks more like a stick version of bozo, the notorious stereotype was still present.

            The stereotype of scientist, along with all other existing stereotypes, has several negative consequences. One of the noteworthy consequences is the fact that the stereotype may deter young scientist, especially women and minorities, from continuing on the path of discover.  As young children, many of us are amazed by the world around us and are determined to discover more through experimentation. Sadly though, we quickly learn that the only people who actually do this in life are white males. This is never blatantly said, but we still quickly pick up on it through snide comments from peers, lack of encouragement from teachers, and the media’s and textbooks constant barrage of white male scientist. This discourages minorities’ and women’s love for science and indirectly forces them into a non-scientific field therefore further perpetuating the stereotype along with further reducing the world’s scientific literacy.

            Along with discouraging potential scientists, the stereotype also amplifies people’s hatred for science. The majority of people in the world are not white males. So, by making the face of science a spitting image of Albert Einstein we are making most people feel like the science is irrelevant to their lives since they cannot personally relate to the person behind the science. In addition to not being able to relate, most people also do not have the literacy needed to understand science’s complex jargon, which results in people turning away from science and goods science writing and towards non-scientific, overly personable sources, like celebrities.

As both a female scientist and a science writer, I believe that I have the duty to eliminate the prominent scientist stereotype from society, beginning with myself. This can be done by showing the world that the science community is not only made up of old, crazy white men. Even here at Ursinus, we have an array of scientific students and teachers, from the typical old white guys all the way to young, minority women. By getting this fact out there, we are not only providing scientific role models for everyone in the world but also bringing science from a remote, incomprehensible subject to one that much more personable and accessible therefore increasing the world’s scientific literacy potential.

Santa Clause is Real

December 15, 1999. Christmas morning at my grandmother’s house in Springfield, Mass. While kids around the country were tearing wrapping paper and joyously playing with their new toys, my six year old self was laying in my bed devastated. I had just found out Santa Clause was not real.

I laid there angrily crying for a few minutes until me dad entered the room. He quickly swept me up, sat me on his lap, and gave me a big hug. As I started to calm down he began to explain to me in a very hushed tone why he had lied. He told me that even though Santa wasn’t a real person, his spirit still existed in our hearts. People around the world chose to keep him “alive” because he represented joy. My dad  ended his explanation by telling me that even though it wasn’t the real truth, I should continue believing in Santa in order to keep the Christmas spirit alive.

Little did I know, but my dad at that moment was explaining to me something much more than the belief in Santa Claus: he was explaining to me the difference between truth and truthiness. Truth is accepting the unquestionable proof that something is the case not matter what the consequences of it may be. Truthiness, on the other hand, is not fully acknowledging the truth and instead going with the gut feeling in order to benefit yourself and others around you.

As a scientists, I struggled with this distinction growing up. I had been taught in all of my classes that, as a scientist, I must search for the truth by objectively examining the world. Only by knowing the truth will our society be able to make the right decisions. When ever I tried to employ this life strategy though, the idea of truthiness became stuck in the back of my mind and I would begin to question if finding the truth was the right thing to do.

After many years of pondering this issue, I came to the realization that I, along with other scientists, should never give up on searching for the truth. If we did than people would miss out on many potential benefits that could possibly make the world better. Instead we as scientist must understand that truth is equivalent to power. Therefore scientist must be tactful with how they use the truth. They are obliged to spread the actually truth as much as possible. If the truth does need to be twisted in truthiness though, the scientist must ensure that the media, politicians, or even individuals are twisting it for the good of all people, not just a few

5 O'Clock

It’s five o’clock. You just got home from work. You walk into the kitchen, grab an ice, cold coke, and plop yourself down on the couch. As you flip on the TV, Jenny McCarthy’s and Jim Carrey’s enticing voices fill your living room. You quickly become captivated by their heartbreaking story of how vaccines caused their poor son to get Autism. You watch as Jenny’s eyes swell up with tears and can’t help but to be enraged by Doctors everywhere. “I will never, ever”, you find yourself saying out loud “give my child a vaccine!”

            There is one issue with this scene: there is NO link between vaccines and autism. This fact has be proved time and time again in numerous studies. Why, you may ask, do McCarthy and Carrey still believe there is? Even worse, who allowed them to spread potentially very harmful falsehood to the public?

            Well, there is one main culprit in this situation: the scientific community. First off, scientists do not make their findings accessible to the public. They often release important results, such as the lack of linkage between autism and vaccines, in reports that are filled with complicated scientific jargon. This results in non-scientific people, such as McCarthy and Carrey, trying to understand the results. Sadly though, these people simply do not have the tools or the know-how to understand ever part of a study. They are not ignorant but they are merely not an expertise in a scientific field, which is the majority of the public. The wrong interpretations of the non-scientific people though, are the ones that are shared with the public, therefore spreading harmful falsehoods. Even when these falsehoods become a common belief the scientific community still fails to address it in an understandable way.

            As a scientific writer, it is my along with other scientific writer’s responsibility to ensure that these falsehoods no longer persist. We need to be the intermediate between the scientists and their jargon filled-studies and curious, information, seeking public. Translating the science writing and making it available to the public via science writers in social media sources is the only way to ensure that correct facts are distributed to the public. 

Follow Me On Twitter!

Now, I am usually the person who is all for the new and exciting crazes, whether it is the latest Jeffrey Campbell shoe, the up-and-coming underground rap group, or the new hit Broadway show. One trend that I completely missed though, was twitter. When it came out I thought it was the worst idea ever. Why would I or anyone else in the world want to know what everyone was doing constantly? I don’t really care that @teenageboy had the new McRib from McDonalds or that @highschoolgirl noticed that the popular girl wore missed matching socks on day. Slowly though, my hatred for twitter, tweeting, and twit-picing diminished and after a year of an over-whelming amount of peer-pressure and increasing curiosity I decided to get a one.

My recent step into the twitter world has made me realize one thing about our society: information is accessible.  You can log on to twitter and see what NBC news is covering at any second. You can scroll through your news feed and see a video of the latest presidential address. You can even meander through Tumlbr and read different people’s opinion about anything under the sun. This realization led me to wonder though, if in this day and age, where information can be found in mere milliseconds, why isn’t science more wide-spread?

While going through my endless number of social media accounts, I found my answer: science isn’t available through popular social media. Most of the time, scientific news, like new findings, are released to the public in very complicated jargon that only an expert in the field can understand. Due to this, the news rarely makes it to social media, therefore rarely reaches millions of potential readers. Even if the news does reach Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. it is usually misconstrued therefore spreading false information to the public.

Even though this issue of the inaccessibility of science is prevalent, the solution is very simple. The first step is to step away from only using the language of scientists. This jargon is acceptable when talking to fellow researchers, but when releasing studies to the public they must be simplified in order to ensure that the majority of the public understands the findings. The second step is to make science more exciting. Science currently is presented in a very dry manner, which repels a good amount of the public. If science were made exciting, then people would not only be drawn to it but they would also remember it. The third and final step is to connect the science to an average person’s life. The scientific community must state why the public should care about an issue, even it’s as far fetch and weird as quantum physics. If these steps – simplify, excite, and connect – occur then science will begin to inch into the world of social media, and before we know it, it will be as wide spread as an Instragram picture of food. As science spread more, the more scientific literate our society will become as a whole, which would result in a more progressive, innovative, and all over beneficial society. 

What happen to Bill Nye the Science Guy?

“I HATE SCIENCE!” was my thirteen-year old brother’s response when I asked him how he felt about school and the classes he’s currently taking. As a scientist myself I cringed at the thought that someone with similar DNA as me could even utter those words, but I held back my urge to yell at him and instead inquired why. He explained that unlike english or social studies, science was just an over-load of random facts that he was forced to memorize. He ended our conversation by hopelessly saying “science just isn’t fun…”

            As I hung up the phone I stood there bewildered. How did my own brother think that science, the subject that is everywhere and probably the closest thing we have to true magic, isn’t fun?! I remember when he used to come home from kindergarten and explain to me for hours how the dinosaurs died or how our heart pumps blood. Where, I wondered, did that pure passion go?

            After a few moments of pondering these questions, it hit me. My brother’ view of science, along with millions of other kids’ views on science is extremely misinformed. This misinformed view that science is horribly boring and pointless begins around middle school. In third grade most kids have their first real science class. These classes aren’t about discovering though, but instead are based on reading boring textbooks and then filling in bubbles for hours on end in order to get that perfect A+. Slowly but surely through the influence of teacher, parents, and many other adult figures, the kids become robots who sit there as scientific facts go in one ear and our the other and then utter the horrendous phrase of "I hate science".

            How, you may ask, do we combat this issue of hatred? Simple. We encourage kids to discover. We no longer squash their passion with boring facts and tests but instead foster their innocent need to wonder, observe, and discover. We must stop presenting scientific studies in a sleep-inducing, passive-voice, jargon-fileld format and begin making them into readable, exciting mysteries whose solutions advance and better our society and the world as a whole.  Only when we make this switch will the norm feeling for science shift from being hatred to the original five-year-old-like love and passion for it. 

BAZINGA

           When you hear the word “scientist” what do you think of? A crazy eyed man or extreme intelligence? A white lab coat who is overly systematic? A pompous man with bozo hair and large glasses?

Well, for me, I immediately think of Sheldon Copper from The Big Bang Theory. (If you haven’t ever watched The Big Bang Theory I would highly recommend going on Free TV and watching an episode or two OR you can watch this Sheldon Cooper Example for a taste of the one and only Sheldon Cooper). Even though he is unquestionably intelligent and performs his job as a physicist with unimaginable precision and care, Sheldon, like many other real-life scientists, lacks a characteristic that prevents him from sharing his discoveries with the public. This fairly standard yet very essential trait to life that the scientific community lacks is compassion.

Now, you may think why would a scientist ever need to be compassionate? Don’t they just have to perform experiments and report their findings to the public? Do you really have to be sympathetic or sociable to do that? What many people do not realize though, is that the job of the scientists is going beyond simple experiments and results; scientists are now through the advancement of technology debunking many common beliefs, which is where a scientist’s need for compassion and understanding comes into play. A scientist can not merely go out into the world one day and nonchalantly tell society that some of the basic ideas that they grew up learning are wrong; Al Gore can’t simple call up Joe the Plumber and tell him to change his consumer life-style because climate change has been proven nor can Bill Nye the Science Guy tell a congregation of Christians that creationism, a 2,000 year old belief, has been disproved by a couple of old, dirty fossils. If scientists try shoving their belief-changing finding down society’s throat, then the people will not only NOT believe the facts but they will also begin to question science as a whole (SPOILER ALERT: this is already happening with climate change, evolution, and many other findings).

           

            In order to avoid a mass distrust in science, scientists must shift from being Sheldon-like to adapting to a more compassionate way of life. A scientist must approach the controversial issues with great tact. He/she must understand that the topics they are discrediting are deeply rooted in people’s culture. Therefore the scientific findings must be released with compassion in order to avoid an emotional response from the public. Only then will our society have even the slightest possibility of becoming entirely scientifically literate. 

The Letter

Two years ago on a brisk February afternoon I was carrying a letter to the blue slightly dented mail box two blocks away from my house. This was no ordinary letter though. I was not writing to the pen pal I’ve always dreamed of having nor sending my late Christmas thank you cards out to various family members. This letter was much more influential and life changing. It was my college acceptance letter to Ursinus.

            As I walked I reflected on the past year, of which I spent countless hours online looking at colleges, traveling around the nation to visit them, and talking to various teachers, counselors and so on about what the “right” decision would be for me. I reflected on how petrified I was that my decision wouldn’t be “right”. How, I remember thinking in late September, did they expect my inexperienced 18 year-old self to make this kind of decision? As I shuffled through the gray slush that lined my street I still was faintly scared, but, even though I couldn’t put my finger on why, I knew my gut was telling me that Ursinus was the place for me.

            Presently, as a slightly more experienced 20-year-old sophomore at Ursinus, I can finally put my finger on why I was attracted to this quaint campus 12 hours from my house. It wasn’t the amazing food at Wismer or the huge freshman dorm rooms, but instead I was enticed by the impressive liberal arts education. Unlike many other schools, Ursinus urges their students to go beyond their academic comfort zone. The college has formed a curriculum that allows students to achieve expertise in their desired major while also being allowed to dabble in the many other subjects offered, from biology to dance to philosophy to calculus. This type of curriculum generates well-rounded, proficient adults who become crucial in our democratic society. In the United States and in other democratic societies, the people, in the end, are the ones who have the ability to vote on laws and to make potential political and social changes into reality. The issues they are voting on and the changes they make though, are often multifaceted and highly complex. They do not merely concern one sector of our nation but instead many different sectors and they affect almost everyone one way or another. This means in order to have a strong democracy that creates adequate solutions our society must be comprised of multifaceted, complex, well-educated citizens, AKA Ursinus graduates. These will be the individuals who will be able to see and understand every side of an issue, therefore being better able to make the appropriate political, economic, or societal change. In other words, if our society was comprised of liberal arts educated citizens then our democracy and our Nation, as a whole, would thrive.

            Every time I see a group of wide-eyed, frightened, high school senior follow a talkative tour guide around campus I think back to the walk to my mailbox. Choosing Ursinus and its liberal arts education was an intimidating decision, but it was unquestionable the right one. Ursinus has prepared my fellow students and I to be global, active citizens in our democracy, which I truly hope the recently accepted high school students see and that this will be enough to instill that gut feeling I felt two years ago. 

The beginning....

"Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality"
-Jonas Salk