The Greatest Scientists Of Our Time?

I took a look at this:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/2006.html

And counted back to 2000.

There were 80-some males, and 4 females. This Honeywell thinger seems to be all about Nobel winners. If that's the standard they use to judge who is the "greatest", then that's their standard, and it's a perfectly legitimate one - perhaps not the best, but I'd say they could certainly do worse. If their selection is overly white and male, that is because of the Nobel Prize winners, not because of Honeywell. While encouraging women to pursue academic and scientific careers is certainly a worthwhile goal, they are not obligated to do so.

I'd like to ask an honest question here - ARE the "greatest scientists of our time" predominantly male?

they are not obligated to do so

Of course they are -- unless you want to exempt corporations from all social responsibility? By law and by convention, they have an obligation to address gender inequity in pretty much everything they do.

I'd like to ask an honest question here - ARE the "greatest scientists of our time" predominantly male?

Here's two honest answers: no, and to the extent that men may outnumber women in that category if it is populated with methods designed to give such an outcome (e.g. "choose only Nobel laureates"), the reason for this is systematic disadvantage not inherent differences in ability.

This has been another instalment of Easy Answers to Simple Questions.

I'm a white male. I probably wouldn't have noticed that if you hadn't pointed it out, but I completely agree with you. I bet they wouldn't have done that if someone had pointed it out to them. I wonder how much of this sort of thing goes unnoticed.

As a 19+-year Honeywell employee (and a woman engineer) who has often pointed this stuff out in vain, let me say that I am not surprised.

"It leaves out too many of the greatest scientists of our time"

You should do us all a favor and name some of these non-male scientists who are among "the greatest of our time".

Oh christ, I hope Susumu Tonegawa isn't included in this ad campaign.

There's nothing wrong with learning about science from Tonegawa. Adolf Hitler, no matter what his other faults, was a great orator, and one can learn a lot about public speaking watching him.

Yes, "the greatest scientists of our time" are predominantly white males, although perhaps not quite as dominant as the Nobel prizes suggest. You can argue all you want about this being caused by discrimination, but nevertheless it is a fact.

On the other hand, if your goal is to "inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists" you should look at who you want to encourage to become a scientist not who are scientists today, and then there is every reason to make sure to include women as there is no reason why they can't become good scientists. One should also look outside the subjects for which you can get a Nobel prize. Someone like Jane Goodall, for example, has meant a lot for science, but given the current narrow definition for the medicine prize she is unlikely to ever receive one.

One should also look outside the subjects for which you can get a Nobel prize.

I'd like to echo this point. I work in a field that by no stretch of the definition will ever qualify for a Nobel in physics, chemistry or medicine, yet it is considered one of the core scientific fields. Are there no "greatest scientists" in my field? By my count there are, and a few women among them.

Oh christ, I hope Susumu Tonegawa isn't included in this ad campaign.

So non-Europeans like Tonegawa only qualify as worthy if they're also radical feminist?

"So non-Europeans like Tonegawa only qualify as worthy if they're also radical feminist?"

BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Surely you're not suggesting that the imagination to be an ethics-trashing fuck is limited to Europeans? That would be very racist of you.

Well, there are a bunch of questions. Are most of the "greatest" scientists of our time male? Answering yes doesn't imply that women are lesser scientists due to some innate differences in ability, but is perfectly compatible with the idea that men receive more advantages in science education and science professions. In fact, if women made up most of the greatest scientists of our time, discrimination in the sciences would be hard to demonstrate. So the answer is probably yes.

But before we can really answer it, another question arises: how is Honeywell supposed to determine who the "greatest scientists of our time" are? Using scientific prizes seems like an obvious solution, and the Nobel is the most prestigious. The only other even remotely objective methods I can think of is to pick people from the departments recognized as the best in particular fields, or to look at who's published the most important works (based on cites, say) in the most important journals. Unfortunately, doing so will inevitably yield far more men than women, those are two areas in which discrimination manifests itself. This is why, as I'm sure Zuska knows, discrimination is self-preserving.

So here's my challenge to Zuska in particular, but anyone else can feel free to jump in. Since we both agree that there is rampant gender discrimination in the sciences, particularly the math-dominated sciences (physics, chemistry, engineering, computer sciences, etc.), and since this implies that pretty much any objective method for selecting the "best scientists of our time" in these sciences is going to yield a bunch of males and very few females, the problem that we, like Honeywell, face, is to come up with a fair and inclusive method that will select female scientists who are as good or better than the males who would be included using the most straightforward methods. So, how would you select them? Let's come up with a method, and get a bunch of people together to write to Honeywell suggesting it. Specifically, we can SBers to sign on, and we can write to the other places where Honeywell is advertising, and ask them to suggest our more inclusive method.

Also, while I understand your motives, isn't it a bit odd to rail against the inclusion of too many white males, and then, when selecting a Nobel to disapprove of, you pick one of the few non-white males? I mean, yes, he's a misogynistic ass who denied a very, very talented female scientist her dream job, but he's a less than calculated, rhetorically neutral (at best) selection. One probably wouldn't have to look hard to find examples of misogyny among some of the white Nobel laureates.

No worry about Tonegawa. I don't think he won in Chemistry or Physics - the Honeywell selection criteria. Those criteria seem to be in line with the type of work that the company does.

Anyway, I see the company problem as interesting. They want a finite number of names so that they can give a prominant position to each person and fully explain the research. While the Nobel Prizes award only a certain type of research, the other option for the company would be to generate its own recognition criteria. This would essentially be creating a Honeywell Recognition Prize, which would be a much larger project. The two other options would be to select winners of other prizes (but I don't know if the other prominant Chem/Physics prizes are any less biased) or to make a few affirmative action picks of women and minorities in addition to the Nobel winners which would probably please no one.

Cheers to Bill's post above, pointing out that there are *very real* systematic reasons for the lack of white women and women of color in the category of 'greatest scientists of our time.' I'd also like to add to this that systematic reasons also explain the lack of men of color in this 'category.'

As Bill described, one way to view this issue is through the 'systematic disadvantage' towards white women, women of color [and men of color]. But how would our views/comments of these issues change if instead we discussed this in a different manner, putting the focus on the *systematic advantages* given to white men?

Chris, if you followed my blog regularly you would know that my long-standing dislike of Tonegawa is a recurring theme and I never miss a chance to express my disgust with his egregious behavior. I never cease to be amazed, however, when expressing disgust with a particular male misogynist leads other males to say "why pick on him? there are other equally bad, if not worse, candidates available." I have never understood that impulse.

BSCI and others, I'd like to reiterate that I have no problem with Honeywell picking its scientists from the pool of Nobel Prize winners. I only have a problem with them labelling them "The Greatest Scientists of Our Time." They could just as well have said "Learn from the Nobel Prize Winners!" Or, more catchy, "Talk Science With the Scientists Who Won the Nobel!" Or something like that. They don't have to go labelling that particular group "the greatest". Because doing so implies that everyone who is the greatest or will be the greatest is already represented adequately in that group. And THAT'S what is pernicious about such subtle non-inclusiveness.

Contrarily, they could have kept the "Learn from the greatest scientists of our time" tag line and NOT restricted their pool of scientists to Nobel Prize winners. They could have chosen a bunch of top rate scientists who were also a more inclusive group. And yes, this would essentially be a Honeywell Recognition Prize, but what's wrong with that? The way they are doing it now, the Honeywell Recognition Prize - which they have created by labelling their group "the greatest scientists of our time" - just defaults to the Nobel Prize. They've created a recognition prize but abdicated all responsibility for selection criteria. They've elected to put their name on a prize whose selection criteria are stacked against women and minorities. If they are comfortable with that, fine. But they shouldn't be allowed to pretend it isn't discriminatory.

How do you evaluate in a more fair and inclusive manner? Consider this quote from the NSF report Beyond Bias and Barriers http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11741.html :

Many people believe that discrimination involves explicit, blatant hostility, but current bias against women scientists and engineers is often subtle, implicit, and unexamined. Under prevailing gender schemas, competent women are often viewed as "overaggressive" and "not nice" whereas traditionally subservient women are seen as "incompetent". In addition, organizational rules and policies that appear egalitarian often produce different results for men and women. The playing field is not level.

One of the problems with identifying who are our outstanding, our "greatest" women scientists and engineers is that we literally do not know how to evaluate and see them. We do not recognize competence and ability when it comes in a different gender package. It looks "wrong" to us. (and by us, I mean both men and women - no one is really exempt from this kind of bias.)

So it isn't just a question of rolling up our sleeves and asking around "who are the best women?" It's a question of learning a new way to think about "how do we recognize excellence when it comes in a form we aren't used to seeing as containing excellence?" Like the orchestras who, when they moved to having blind auditions, suddenly discovered that they were hiring a lot more women musicians.

Who can we look to, to teach us how to see in this new way? Well, the NSF ADVANCE http://research.cs.vt.edu/advance/index.htm programs around the country have been working on this issue for a number of years. They host a lot of experts, have gathered a lot of expertise. I'm personally biased towards the folks at Kansas State http://www.k-state.edu/advance/ because I adore them, but any of the programs would do. I'd send the folks at Honeywell to one of the ADVANCE programs for some consulting on how to be a bit more inclusive in picking their academic experts, for a start. I might recommend that we Sb folks ask the ADVANCE teams for some advice on how to address this issue. It's a nifty question.

And I would surely recommend that, in any case, we look outside the Nobel group if only to include the engineers, who never ever ever will be included in Nobel Prizes, even though Alfred Nobel himself was an engineer.

Transgressingengineer, this (systematic advantages for men) is one of the things Virginia Valian discusses so eloquently, completely, and well in her book "Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women", which is a book I highly recommend to all.

"One of the problems with identifying who are our outstanding, our "greatest" women scientists and engineers is that we literally do not know how to evaluate and see them"

The same's true of ghosts.

"They've elected to put their name on a prize whose selection criteria are stacked against women and minorities."

It's rather unfair to accuse the Nobel's of discrimination when not even you can name any of these women who should have won but didn't.

You should do us all a favor and name some of these non-male scientists who are among "the greatest of our time".

I'll start. Off the top of my head, without even trying: Elizabeth Blackburn, Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, Pamela Bjorkman, Anita Roberts, Jane Goodall, Linda Buck (Nobel a couple years ago?), Julie Overbaugh. These are mostly people I've seen present their work or with whom I've had some sort of contact, but Google should quickly demonstrate their scientific standing.

This goes to Chris' idea, too: given that discrimination is self-preserving, a kind of affirmative action may be called for: simply suggest to Honeywell a long list of women who are clearly among "the greatest scientists and engineers of our time" and ask that they strive for a little more balance in their program.

They will likely brush it aside, since they are focused on the Nobel Prize which -- whether one thinks it deserved or not -- has a clear standing with the lay public as the epitome of "great science". Nonetheless, it can't hurt to remind them that the community they claim to serve is not impressed.

Zuska, I'm aware of your ongoing hatred of Tonegawa, and I think that, for the most part, it's warranted (as I think my comment showed). However, I think one problem that feminists continually face is the tendency to place gender over race, and by singly out Tonegawa, regardless of your feelings for him, when you're trying to make the point that not just males, but white males, are overrepresented, you're inevitably placing gender over race. Of course, Asian males are not really underrepresented in the sciences, but I think the point still stands. If you want to make it about white males, use white males as your whipping horses. As I said before, you shouldn't have a problem finding misogynistic white males in science, or even among the Nobel laureates.

Second, I think you need to do more than point Honeywell to a program somewhere, if you want your criticism to be constructive. "Greatest Scientists of Our Time" is an effective marketing point. If you're going to criticize them for using it, and want them to really think about changing it, you should give them an alternative. And if you want them to choose a more inclusive selection criterion, recognizing as I'm sure you do that given the atmosphere of discrimination in the hard sciences, this is an incredibly difficult task, you're going to have to give them some tangible suggestions. Since you seem to be familiar with the work of the various ADVANCE programs, you should be able to come up with some working ideas at least.

My point, then, in both of my comments is that talk is cheap. At this point, a company like Honeywell has very little incentive to listen to talk about gender discrimination, because seeking out solutions on their own requires more work without financial rewards. And I think we all know that most companies are unlikely to get excited about doing work without seeing some return for it. So it's up to the people who want change to do the work for them, showing them that it's possible, with little or no extra work, to adopt more inclusive criteria, or use language that results in less discrimination. I know this is only a blog, but given the fact that you've got this platform, and with it a bunch of readers who are likely to have good ideas, you should use it to act, rather than simply talk.

Bill, I notice your list doesn't include any women of color. Your racist list (which it is if judged by the standards being used here to call the Nobel Prizes sexist) might lead African-American women to believe they can't be great scientists.

Buck won a Nobel, by the way, so I guess the comittee isn't fully committed to sexism. Or maybe Buck deserved her Nobel, and those other women don't?

This conversation has happened here before, but if you limit your list to Physics and Chem nobels (all their profiles living?) makes an extremely short non-male list. Most of the female Nobels listed in an above post are the Medicine prize.

I partially agree with Zuksa, but I do like the "Great scientists of our time" header. That is good marketing. (I noticed I changed "greatest" to "great" without looking at the original post. "Great" gets the same point without being as charged a term).
The question is, for a company that doesn't want to devote significant labor to create a consistent criteria for selecting people, what can quickly use besides the Nobel. Zuksa's note that an engineering firm isn't highlighting engineers is very good and there are many non-white male engineers that they can highlight. Some of her links are also good resources.

Perhaps another option would be to link directly to their company. Find the people who fundamental concepts and devices behind the devices they produce. That would have a better sample than the Nobel, would show how basic science relates to applications, and promotes the products of the company.

Perhaps this could lead to a companion post with a postive spin for once: "What criteria would you use to make a list of great scientists and engineers?"

If prizes are a starting point to find the great scientists, Honeywell could look at Macarthur Prize awardees. They have recognized a more diverse group of scientists than the Nobels have done (in recent years there have been several female awardees in the physical sciences, for example). The "genius grant" winners have to have some pretty big accomplishments to merit their awards.

a companion post with a postive spin for once

See, if only you bloody women would stop complaining...

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with negative posts and I never said stop complaining. Both are good. And yes there are positive posts here so my "for once" was probably not appropriate.

hey dont forget women who couldnt have won the prize due to being dead like Rosalin Franklin. Or thoae we all can agree were robbed like Lise Meitner. Or those who you could make a good case for being robbed like C. S. Wu. Or Inge Lehmann who discovered the structure of the earths core. No one loves geologists I guess. I mean I never heard of her till recently but the structure of the earths core oughta qualify you for a "the greatest" I think.

You should do us all a favor and name some of these non-male scientists who are among "the greatest of our time".

Do yourself a favor and put some active effort into learning about them instead of putting your figurative feet on your figurative desk and shifting the burden of your ignorance onto Zuska.

The great majority of the Nobel Laureates in science are not only male, but WHITE as well.

Would it be appropriate for Honeywell to only include white males in their ads? Is it more offensive to have a racist ad than it is to have a sexist ad?

And while we're at it, a great proportion of Nobel Laureates were Jewish white males. So I guess if Honeywell is going to play the numbers game properly, they should have Jewish white males as the symbol of a great scientist.

... And why do I get the feeling that such an idea would not go over well?

So if it is not acceptable to single out a great scientist based on religion OR race, why is it any more acceptable to single out great scientists by sex?

Those of you who are defending the sexism in the Honeywell campaign but would object to racism are HYPOCRITES. Just admit it, you're a misogynist who loves trashing women but cries wolf at any other sort of prejudice because for some reason, sexism IS acceptable to your ignorant selves.

It's easier to call others ignorant than name all of these overlooked female scientists who are "the greatest", isn't it Frumious B?

Dayna, you're right that a "a great proportion of Nobel Laureates were Jewish". If the maleness of Nobel winners is because of sexism, then shouldn't we also conclude that the Jewisness of so many Nobel winners is the result of a bias in favor of Jews?