The venerable British journal Nature will publish four special issues in 2022 addressing issues of racism and science, including how racist thinking has permeated the content of biological thought, downplaying knowledge accumulated by non-Western societies and the exclusion of people of color from the scientific establishment.
MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles is one of four guest editors for these issues, along with Elizabeth Wathuti, an environmental and climate activist from Kenya and founder of the Green Generation Initiative; Chad Womack, a scientist, vice president of national STEM programs and tech initiatives at UNCF for Education, Washington DC, and founder of the Ernest E. Just Life Science Initiative and Society.; and Ambroise Wonkam, professor of genetic medicine and director of the McKusick-Nathans Institute and the Division of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. These are the first signed guest articles in Nature’s 153 year history; the first special issue comes out today.
MIT News discussed the series with Nobles, who, before becoming chancellor, was chief of the Department of Political Science and dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
Q: What is it that nature has asked you to do here, as a scientist, along with the team that put it together?
A: Nature wanted to think critically, examine the past and also think about the future. Their editors invited the four of us to be guest editors and help them reflect on the question: how should nature discuss racism in science? They gave us a lot of leeway. As organizers, we’ve thought broadly, given different views on how important history has been in shaping our present moment, and then thought about how to get past this. For example, we commissioned an article discussing UK universities’ efforts to make changes to the science curriculum. There are two guest articles, one published in June and one today, and four special issues, the first of which is out today.
Q: What are the main topics that you explore in these editorials and special issues – and by extension, which we should explore as we think about the presence of racism in science?
A: Much of what has been on our minds has two components: one is the way racist ideas have helped shape scientific knowledge on their own. For example, in the first editorial we point to the eugenics movement and attempts to create a “scientific” rationale for racial hierarchies, looking back at figures like the statistician and eugenicist Francis Galton and examining the roots of such thinking.
Another aspect is to draw attention to all of the history that has been denied, the ways in which science has been so defined in its meaning that the contributions of all non-Western civilizations were either ignored or minimized – even as Western scientists built on local knowledge and borrowing from indigenous peoples. They colonized and simultaneously ignored other contributions not only from Africans, but also from Latin Americans, Asians, and indigenous peoples around the world. Our message is that science is a human endeavor, and that requires us to absorb all human knowledge.
Our second feature, today, is about diversity as a scientific necessity. Not out of charity, but because science is better when it takes into account the diversity of human knowledge and skills. In connection with this, we also examine the experiences of people of color in scientific professions, and present pure figures on how many people of color there are in scientific professions. The situation in the US is pretty bleak, but we have some of the best data in the world. For example, in the UK, South Africa, India and other parts of the world, the situation seems to be worse and we have worse data. Data collection is so bad in some places and non-existent in others, we don’t even know the magnitude of the problem.
Q: Given that many people practice science with the intention of value-neutral research, are there any difficulties in engaging in a dialogue about the prejudices within science?
A: We think science is neutral, but so often people have an idea of what a scientist looks like, or who is qualified to be a scientist, and that often comes with prejudices about color. We’re trying to debunk those myths. If science belongs to everyone, with a spirit of inquiry and methods that can be learned to explain the natural world and human life, many different people can be involved.
An additional question, and this can be a controversial debate, is to what extent do you take into account or weigh the larger context in which science is created, or do you offer an account of science that seemingly transcends history – that is, scientists who talking to each other through the ages, unhampered by experiences. Our approach does not support the latter, and I think most people think we should consider the ways in which scientific endeavors are socially, politically and historically rooted.
Meanwhile, science is also evolving – in terms of the type of data we have, how we process and interpret data, the means to discover new tools, and the appreciation of different ways of knowing. And that’s what we’re advocating, broadening the opening of the scientific imagination. Our approach comes with an acknowledgment that despite all that we have achieved as humans, we have also done a lot of damage and that there is still a lot of work to do. We call for a broad lens when looking at these topics, and a generosity of mind.
Q: One of the goals of the series, as stated in the first guest editorial, is to “bring readers hope and optimism.” What are examples of this?
A: As we describe in one issue, some schools in the UK are rethinking how they teach science, including including new figures in the history of science, because there were many people whose work and intellectual contributions were not recognised. There is more than one woman in the history of science other than Madame Curie. Indeed, there were many women who worked in labs or as calculators, and part of this re-examination is simply repopulating our imaginations about who was involved, not on the basis of fantasy, but by giving due recognition. That’s something that we think is hopeful, because it’s starting to complicate the history of science in a useful way.
In terms of who is doing science today, we can try to understand who is excluded and what obstacles they face. We can examine computer science and emerging technologies like AI and say, “If we’re not careful, we’re going to make the same mistakes,” if we don’t deal with the non-diversification of this field. It is hopeful, but it is also a warning for the future.
Q. As Chancellor of MIT, you focus on student life and learning at the Institute. How do the topics and themes of the special Nature issues relate to current MIT students?
A. I would like the MIT community to be interested in, among other things, the topline of our second feature, the one coming out today, which argues that diversity is a scientific necessity. Looking ahead, diversity goes hand in hand with increased collaboration across disciplines to tackle our complex societal challenges. We also suggest that the makeup of people participating in these efforts matters, and we should be concerned about having a scientific population that can bring diverse experiences and points of view to solving problems. We think it makes for better science.
In some ways, our students demand that. I think many students in this generation come in with an attitude that is more inclined to collaboration and diversity, and we should celebrate that. Each of those students sees themselves as part of a bigger story. We have a campus with students from all over the United States and around the world, and we want to make it clear that MIT can work for everyone.
