Are you there, science? It's me.

[lettered]

I’ve always wanted to know everything about everything, and I’ve always loved the way everything connects to everything else. Except science.



It always bothered me to say I didn’t like science. If I’m interested in everything, how come I can’t be interested in the most fundamental thing? Science is about what things are, what makes everything the way it is. How could I not be interested?

It occurs to me now that science posits, “reality is”, and maybe I had a problem with that. I am in some ways interested in everything because, “maybe reality isn’t”. Also, maybe it could be said science is reality; everything else is meta-reality, and for some reason the more levels removed from reality you get while still making sense, the more interested I become. It’s probably true of me that I like contemplating the universe more than the universe itself.

But it also bothered me to say I didn’t like science, because—well, it sounded to me like saying you like kids, which I’ve also found sort of ridiculous. Some kids are cool; some kids suck. Some science is nifty; some sucks. Maybe chemistry is awesome and biology blows.

But it’s possible to really just like kids, both cool kids and sucky kids. And I really just didn’t like science.

Then I fell in love. So, okay, I like science now. All of science, not just choice parts of biology. But what I’m interested in right now is why I didn’t like it, and why other people may not. Is it just me, or is this a hard subject to get into? Is it just me, or does it seem like kids will more likely be interested in anything else more than science (or possibly math)? And is it just me, or does it seem like the latter are more often girls?

It’s a gross stereotype. There are plenty of women doctors and astronauts and biologists. But I’m always hearing how tech schools are 90% guys. Companies ache for girl engineers to fulfill their quotas. From what I’ve heard labs are still predominantly male, and while female physicists exist, all the famous ones I know are men.

Is it male oppression? Women still can’t get these high paying jobs? These positions of authority? These careers which require higher thinking, since we all know women have tiny brains?

Is it just taking longer for these fields to open up to women?

Does it have to do with stereotypes of women not being technical-minded, of women being “artsy”, women focusing on “feeling more than fact”?

What do you think? Are you interested in science? Why or why not? What do you think about science? Women in science? The history of women in science, and whether it says anything about how far we’ve come as a society or not?

Comments

[hl]

Physics, chem and biology are dominated by women at the 'number of students' level around here. (I'm not sure about math -- I know that physics was male-dominated when my elder brothers studied it, and I know that changed, but I don't have math people now to find out the other.)

I do think that science gets an unfair rep in highschool -- we're not taught science properly. They just tell you stuff that seems either random or too common-sense, and then make you memorize it. That's not science.

I know of a camp (a physics prof from the university was involved) that basically took high-school kids and ask them basic physics questions. They learnt physics by finding out the answers, by themselves, with experiments. That is science, and I bet those kids loved it.

I also talk a lot with my now 18yo and 14yo cousins. They say they don't like science, a lot, and have said it since they were little. But they ask me tons of stuff about reality (either biology or chem seems to interest them more), and they hear and remember the answers.

I do think that an emphasis on women in science would've made it easier for me to picture me actually working at it. I still have trouble with it and assume the few boys around know more than I do (not true always!).

[lettered]

They just tell you stuff that seems either random or too common-sense, and then make you memorize it. That's not science.

Omg, yes.

I know of a camp (a physics prof from the university was involved) that basically took high-school kids and ask them basic physics questions. They learnt physics by finding out the answers, by themselves, with experiments. That is science, and I bet those kids loved it.

Hm. What I hated most in science in school was the experiments. You know, where you get to grow a plant, or test chemicals over a Bunsen burner, or build airplanes to see which one will fly best. This was what convinced me in the end that I didn't like science, because teachers would say, "See, this is what science REALLY is!" and I didn't like it, so I must not like science.

Part of my problem with that stuff, I think, is that when scientists do experiments they're usually looking to find out something new. The experiments we had to do in grade school were all about finding out stuff other people already knew, so it always felt . . . pointless.

What I find interesting about science now is that I have people asking me questions that I have to find the answers to. I don't have to run experiments to find out the answers, but I get to go anywhere I want. For instance, in order to talk about the problem of carbon emissions to staff and visitors, I've done everything from mineral identification and composition to looking at the molecular structure of the sugars plants produce when they photosynthesize. Not stuff I usually associate with global warming, and not stuff we connected to global warming in school, even if we did look at minerals and talk about photosynthesis.

I do think that an emphasis on women in science would've made it easier for me to picture me actually working at it.

For me, I feel like there was an emphasis. I was very good at it, better than most boys, and was told over and over I could have a really successful career in it. But I was very averse to it until recently. Though I do wonder if feeling like as a girl who was good at math/science I had a responsibility to have a career in math/science in order to prove girls had minds put me off it.

[hl]

Well, usually the experiments they make you do are already designed for you. That can be boring (or not, depending on your personal tastes and all that -- I'm a lab rat, and I love experiments and understanding why they work and all that). These kids went to the camp to discover physics laws again, and thus posed the questions in a group and designed the experiments to answer them. Physic teacher(s) were there much as a peer review group, to point out flaws in the design or the conclusions.

I do know that there must be people who don't like designing experiments, but I think that if you don't, in general it's a good bet that you don't like science, because science is basically that struggle to get answers. (Which is fine! I just think much more people would love science if it would be presented as such, and not the bizarre thing they usually teach.)

(I was told I was good at it, too. But, one, I didn't know that many lady scientists who had discovered things and the like, and two, I have two elder brothers who're brilliant, so I pretty much grew up comparing myself to them and failing in my own eyes.)