I've gotten several emails and one enthusiastic comment about the recent recipients of the Nobel Prize in Medicine. For those of you still unfamiliar, here is a synopsis of the events a la CNN with some links a la Isis:
Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak are credited with discovering how chromosomes are protected against degradation -- a field that could shed light on human aging and diseases, including cancer.
"The award of the Nobel Prize recognizes the discovery of a fundamental mechanism in the cell, a discovery that has stimulated the development of new therapeutic strategies," the committee said in a news release
...
It centers on structures at the end of chromosomes called telomeres and an enzyme that forms them, called telomerase.As cells divide, chromosomes need to be replicated perfectly. Work by the researchers determined that telomeres protect DNA from degradation in the process, and that telomerase maintains the telomeres.
Several of you emailed me to ask if I was thrilled to learn that two women have been awarded the Nobel Prize. I am. I think it's cool. That said, I am not quite ready to put down my sword and stop the fight for equality and parity in science.
Figure 1: Dr. Isis believes that what her laboratory could use is more sword fights
Let me show you why I am not quite ready to turn the lights off on the blog and fade into oblivion and hotness:
Figure 2: A quick review of the data indicates that about 4% (n=7) of Nobel Prizes in Medicine (total n=211) have been awarded to women. If you only include data from after 1977, 9% of Nobel Laureates in Medicine have been women.
You might say, "But Isis! The number of women scientists has been increasing. The equality will come!" Man, if I had a nut for everyone who said this to me, I'd be a woman covered in nuts. If this is true, I would expect that the number of women awarded Nobels to be increasing. Here are the data:
It doesn't seem that the prize is being awarded to a woman any more frequently. If anything, it seems to be happening less frequently. So, I am very happy for the recipients, but I think it might be premature to officially declare gender discrimination dead. At least until I have seen a few more years worth of data.
On a positive note, Dr. Greider told the editor of the Nobel Prize website:
I think actively promoting women in science is very important because the data has certainly shown that there has been an underrepresentation. And I think that the things that contribute to that are very many ... subtle, social kinds of things.This leaves me feeling optimistic that, perhaps someday, the Nobel data will look different.
Medicine & Health
Life Science
Comments
Oh, come now. You're beginning to sound like one of those people who claims the US still has a problem with racism even though we clearly have a black president now.
/sarcasm>
Posted by: Beth B. | October 7, 2009 11:14 PM
Great post! Thanks for putting the statistics. I didn't remember them exactly, but I was pretty darn close, and you saved me from having to calculate. I love your carebears fucking tea party data set. I love that I've been blogging long enough to get the reference. And I really love that there is at least one other person (okay, maybe two if you count Beth B) who felt this way about this news. Glad you have a sword and a blog. Keep up the good fight.
Posted by: msphd | October 8, 2009 12:26 AM
Was the 404 on the CBFTP link intentional? It was a very amusing meta communication.
Posted by: becca | October 8, 2009 12:51 AM
Becca,
wut?
Isis
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | October 8, 2009 1:06 AM
I'll have to disagree. I wouldn't want the Nobel to have a mandatory 50% women quota, I want it to be awarded based on the importance and quality of research done. You're exhibiting a clear case of "it's not sexist when we do it", but demanding half of the winners to be women is as sexist as saying no women should get one, just in the other direction.
That's not saying women aren't doing interesting and important research, I'm just saying a scientist's sex (or skin color or native tongue or...) should in no way be even looked at in the Nobel (or any) awarding process. There may well be decades where no women scientists make important discoveries; maybe these working on the cancer cure got stuck in a dead end, and the other crew working on the interplanetary shuttle bus has to wait for funding. The same thing can happen to the men as well, but should a woman get a Nobel purely because of her double X?
In my personal dream world, your graph up there could look like a rollercoaster, but the n count after 50 years should be 50/50 approx.
Posted by: noru | October 8, 2009 3:01 AM
but demanding half of the winners to be women is as sexist as saying no women should get one, just in the other direction.
Um, no. Sexism in "the other direction" would be demanding that no men be awarded the Nobel Prize. But I can see how that scenario must sound so hilariously improbable that it never even occurred to you.
Posted by: Laura | October 8, 2009 8:09 AM
Laura, I'm with noru. Determining who is awarded a Nobel prize based on gender would be sexist. That said, I don't see where Isis, or Dr. Greider, was suggesting a quota. She's just said that we need to examine why successful women in science are underrepresented and see what can be done to fix that.
Posted by: JoannaH | October 8, 2009 9:12 AM
I love it when people expect women to jump up and down for joy that they're actually getting recognized for their work. Um, no. I don't jump up and down for joy because it should have been happening all along.
Posted by: k8 | October 8, 2009 10:25 AM
Isis: your second graph is meaningless. With such a small sample size, it's really suggestive of nothing at all. When 30 "female nobels" have gone out, well then we can start saying something.
noru: "There may well be decades where no women scientists make important discoveries"
And why would there be a correlation between penises and important discoveries for decades? I mean, you're making an incredible claim -- that out of the world-wide population of scientists, decades can go by without a single vagina-having person will be making an important discovery. Such a claim requires some kind of explanation.
I assume that you're trying to claim that, sexism free, people with vaginas are likely to go decades without making an important discovery. Either that claim means a) that women are under-represented due to some inherent weakness in their scientific faculties or b) that women will be under-represented in the "important discovery making" sub-population of scientists due to some inherent weakness in their scientific faculties.
Is there a third option? I'd love to hear it. Given that 3 science Nobels + the economic prize are given every year, and usually they are given to 1-3 people, we'd be sampling over a decade about 40-80 people out of science. Really, it's quite difficult to explain a completely lop-sided distribution there by simple random assortment! And if that were the case, you'd have to expect decades without any penis Nobel prizes -- hmm?
Usually whinging about "reverse discrimination" is patently simply an excuse to ignore the obvious on-going discrimination.
Posted by: frog | October 8, 2009 10:36 AM
noru: "I wouldn't want the Nobel to have a mandatory 50% women quota"
And of course, noru, that's the weakest strawman I've seen in years. No one has suggested a "quota" system. It's obvious that what most people would be interested in is finding out the systematic biases that lead to the pattern -- not some Soviet style solution of just decreeing that women get 50%, but actually fixing the problem.
Posted by: frog | October 8, 2009 10:40 AM
Frog: I notice you conveniently ignored the line where I wrote "The same thing can happen to the men as well".
That's really all I can say about that. I can explain at length, if needed: Both men and women can go decades without important discoveries. Given the lamentable fact that women weren't really allowed a big voice in science until quite recently (and are still grossly underrepresented and under-acknowledged), it is only logical to see a lot more Nobels going out to the men. I never suggested, however, that there is a correlation between genitalia and successful research. All I'm saying is that if no important progress is made, nobody should get a Nobel, just because it would be "fairer" to give one to a woman. Same goes for the men, if they don't deliver, they don't get the reward, period, and I'd be saying the same thing if someone called for more men in a field where women were predominant.
As it is, there are far less women in the upper ranks of the science world (or at least that's the impression I get), no doubt in part for sexist reasons that would have never been there if things went my way but sadly are, so seeing more men getting the big prizes is only to be expected. For example, if, hypothetically, only 25% of scientists doing the most important research were female, but Nobels were awarded at a 50/50 rate, you'd likely have to award prizes to women with less deserving projects, just to meet the quota. That is what I don't want. I'd simply like this to be a non-issue.
k8: Exactly.
Posted by: noru | October 8, 2009 10:58 AM
Frog: Re: #10
I wrote that more to illustrate my point, not that anyone had called for such a quota (and I did it again before seeing your second post). I realize now that it's not very elegant.
On the rest, I agree completely.
Posted by: noru | October 8, 2009 11:07 AM
noru: "I notice you conveniently ignored the line where I wrote "The same thing can happen to the men as well"."
Except it never has. Either you're arguing a straw man, or your statement is completely void of content, or you're making a sexist claim. Which one is it?
That's the danger in these "reverse discrimination" discussions -- if it's a purely hypothetical construct, then why make it, since no one is actually arguing for it? You're implying claims without owning them, since any reasonable reader is going to see a subtext "Ah ha! These feminazis want to require Nobels to be given out on the basis of genitalia!"
It also completely avoids the obvious subtext, implication and point of Isis's post -- that the gender disparity implies bias at some level or other. The question of where it is, is a good question: it's not at all obvious where the most significant bias occurs, between early childhood and chairmanship distribution. Those are important questions.
But it's actually quite terrible to discuss the non-existent issue of gender discrimination for women -- being that it doesn't exist as of yet. You might as well say "I'm against giving 25% of Nobels to Martian colonists as a quota" -- so fuckin' what?
Personally, I'm against the development of pro-7-toe bias by the Nobel committee. It would be just terrible if Isis were to suggest something like that -- that kind of toeism is just plain wrong. I'm not sayin' she's for that -- but if she were for that, we'd all have to accuse her of evil toeism. Just sayin'.
Posted by: frog | October 8, 2009 1:13 PM
Actually, the data presented show very little evidence that the time between awards to women is increasing. The first order linear trend is in fact -0.5 +/- 0.6 years per award. To the extent that such an analysis suggests any conclusion it is that there is a slight downward trend. Of course, as noted by frog, the most important thing to note is that there are only 6 data points.
My guess is that the claim that it seems to be increasing is based on looking only at the last *3* data points. And implicitly puts great importance on the fact that women were honored only 2 years apart without recognizing that this data point also undermines the point you are trying to make.
I agree that women are underrecognized. This fact is apparent without torturing data into saying things that it doesn't.
Posted by: Avicenna | October 8, 2009 1:58 PM
In fifteen to twenty years I think a starkly different picture will emerge. The gender disparity of women in science began to be addressed as a problem (on a national stage) in universities starting about fifteen years ago. The results of those efforts in the workplace as well as the classroom did not start to appear-in terms of numbers of women in science- until about ten years ago. As a result, when I was an undergrad, women outnumbered men in almost all of the science classes and in some, such as those in the agriculture dept, by a substantial margin. I have observed the same situation, mostly due-I would suspect-to the efforts of those who have been promoting women in science, while working on my PhD and now in industry. Every place I have worked has been dominated by women; come to think of it, I have never had a male boss.
In another five to ten years, those same women flooding the scene when I was an undergrad and grad student will be moving into positions of tenure with well established labs and great research portfolios. Only after these women- as well as their research- have matured and have been publishing for some years will we begin to see the disparity in Nobel Awards begin to truly diminish and reach a hopefully sustainable parity.
A great and worthy effort has been and is being extended towards closing the gender gap in the sciences. To some extent we are already enjoying the rewards of this effort in the classroom and the workplace. Soon, I hope these same efforts will be rewarded with something the public holds as more tangible - Nobel Prizes.
Posted by: Chester Copperpot | October 8, 2009 4:30 PM
Is this the norm in the biological sciences now? Women still only account for about 20-25% of students in physics and computer science, and to my understanding the gender distribution is less skewed but still weighted toward men in other physical sciences. I could certainly believe that the life sciences have reversed this trend, but it's not a statistic I'm familiar with.
Posted by: adagger | October 8, 2009 7:01 PM
Isis, your second graph sucks. Also, your use of "penis" and "vagina" is over the top gender-normative.
It is true that very few women have been awarded the NP ever, but the number per decade (which is a much more sensible and understandable way to present the data) has gone up, which is encouraging. It has not gone up enough.
For general interest, see the string of numbers below. Each number represents a year in which a woman was awarded a NP, where there are multiple years that means more than one woman getting a prize.
It would help if the NP represented a broader range of the sciences. The iconic Jane Goodall can't get one, for instance, and primatology has probably had a greater number of NP level women than men (Goodall, Hrdy, Pusey, Smuts, Altmann, to name a few). (Primatology would presumably be covered under the recently proposed NP for Evo. Bio.)
1903
1905
1909
1911
1926
1928
1931
1935
1938
1945
1946
1947
1963
1964
1966
1976
1976
1977
1979
1982
1983
1986
1988
1991
1991
1992
1993
1995
1996
2004
2004
2007
2008
2009
2009
2009
2009
Posted by: nobody's muffin | October 8, 2009 7:06 PM
Dr. Isis is clearly a toeist. See any 7toed shoes of the week? QED, muppethuggers, QED.
(and Nobel level primatology? Seriously? You people are off the hook!)
Posted by: Eleanor "Muffy" Wedgewood-Wodehouse Cai | October 8, 2009 7:28 PM
Man, I wish I could publish data like that. "Here is a string of numbers from which you are supposed to be able to infer some trend based on your savant-like mental abilities."
My second graph is what it is. It is the time between awards of the Nobel Prize in Medicine to women. The mean, as reflected in the graph, seems tp be about 5 years. The point is, there is no trend towards parity, in which you would expect to see half of the prizes awarded to men and half to women because gender because a random variable, like flipping a coin.
Avicenna, you might note the follwoing sentence from my post:
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | October 8, 2009 7:47 PM
I should not comment on my own blog post-sudafed. Oh well. Fuck it.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | October 8, 2009 8:16 PM
It's worth noting that 1) Greider was Blackburn's grad student but Blackburn shared the glory (unlike several male recipients) and 2) Blackburn was the scientist who got fired from the Bush "bioethics panel" for daring to inject some reality into the stem cell debate.
Posted by: Constant Gina | October 8, 2009 8:16 PM
Frog: What are you even trying to tell me with this? "It never has?" No male research team has ever had problems, or failed, or got stalled for years on end, only to find their results more or less unremarkable? Do you really think that?
I think we ultimately agree, actually, and you're just misunderstanding me.
Dunno about you, but I read a pretty clear call for more female Nobel laureates from Isis' post, and I think this is misguided. A call for more women in science, for finding and eliminating the systematical bias, etc. - I can get behind that. But not a call for more awards. We'd want more women in positions where they can earn a Nobel (and eventually will), not more women who get one. This might seem nit-picky to you, for me it's a very important difference, because I am all for equality. Calling for the latter can well down-value the award in everyone's eyes, even when it's honestly deserved. I have a black friend who's in college in the USA, and he has to deal with "bet you're only here because of Affirmative Action" type idiocy all the time. I don't want to have something like that happen at the Nobel.
Posted by: noru | October 9, 2009 11:37 AM
Where the balls did any of you get that I was advocating a quota system for the Nobel Prize?
Seriously?
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | October 9, 2009 6:09 PM
I'm not really disagreeing with any of the previous posts. I think that there is just a variety of slightly different interpretations, as noru at #22 has commented.
I just offer a different dimension - one I see from habitually having to stand on my head on the Earth's surface - relatively speaking.
The American press claims that all these 'Americans' have won Nobel prizes this year. They are technically correct. But it is only PART OF THE STORY.
ELIZABETH BLACKBURN IS AN AUSSIE.
(I have written a poem for her, which chides at our own culture. You can see it at http://www.pool.org.au/text/d/for_elizabeth_blackburn_nobel_prizewinner_2009)
We will happily claim her back to our bosom now that she has 'proved' herself, as we do for entertainers and sportspeople who are 'successful overseas'. We also embrace again 'our' previous 10 Nobel prizewinners, who have lived and done their work overseas.
And, for no apparent reason, I find it interesting that many of the other 'American' science Nobel laureates this year would not be eligible to be President because they were born elsewhere. I made a list, but I've forgotten the details. Several got higher education in Britain before coming to US (three of them were born in completely different countries, ie India, China and Australia, then went to Britain) and then they got further research opportunities in the US and became US citizens.
Is this important? Probably no more important than counting 'gender'. But it does show that America, in science research, in the past 50 yrs, been the land of opportunity for many – as England was before that - and England seems still to have been first-choice for many who aspire to a top-class education.
My own daughter has been in the US since she started her PhD at a hot top-notch University, because Over There she can do more of the hot, hot science that she loves than she could do here, Downunder. She is still there post-doccing, and there is no indication she will be 'home' any time soon.
In fact, she comments that in her lab, due to the dearth of ‘stereotypical’ American-born science people, they jokingly say they would like to add the following phrase to their hiring advertisements: “men, Americans, and majorities are encouraged to apply”.
And previously, over 20+ years, I have heard similar sentiments expressed by a friend (an Aussie-born American) who was head of one of the NIH labs for many years, whose best post-doc applicants, year after year after year, were not ‘native-born Americans’.
Maybe this portends more diversity in ethnicity and gender in major prizes in the next generation. It would be a pity if it didn’t. Women and many minorities have not had the same opportunities as white-male-Anglo-Saxons up until the 1960s, at least. In my generation of undergrads, women were 'there' in science, but not in the same numbers they are today. So the proportions of those of my age are not 'equal' ‘at the top end’ at the moment; hopefully that will change in the future.
But nevertheless, whether it does or not, let’s take joy in the achievements of these clever people, let’s hold them up as models for the students of today, and let’s just let the hottest of hot science shine through.
Posted by: d. | October 9, 2009 7:00 PM
Where the balls did any of you get that I was advocating a quota system for the Nobel Prize?
Any time you remark upon an apparent underrepresentation of persons of a specific category or suspect class you are automatically insisting that the world needs to operate on strict quota systems. Plus, you are also insisting on the world of Harrison Bergeron. Everybody knows that Isis.
Posted by: bikemonkey | October 9, 2009 7:05 PM
Well, well, well. I had no idea. Thanks for setting me straight, BM.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | October 9, 2009 8:19 PM
I already said that I did not think you advocated a quota system, Isis, and admitted that it hadn't been a good idea to bring one up, even if just to illustrate the point.
Posted by: noru | October 10, 2009 4:41 AM
Hey, it's better than the economists who just awarded the first ever noble prize to a woman.
Posted by: katydid13 | October 13, 2009 2:17 PM