Science and Human Welfare

Science is a pervasive influence on human life today, though most people have only a vague image of what science means and may have complete misperceptions about certain scientific concepts. Many people simply have not been exposed to the information they need to judge science. Women, however, have been actively excluded, or at least discouraged, from science for some time, a factor much noted in analyses of academic statistics and in analyses of the job market in science. This is noted in the book Common Science? Women, Science, and Knowledge by Jean Barr and Lynda Birke as part of their primary emphasis on the fact that the scientific community remains largely unaccountable to the public. Part of their approach to this issue is to talk to non-academics to see what they think about science and about the issues surrounding the field.

The authors note that science surrounds us but that "many people (and most women) stand outside science" (1). Women in particular are alienated from science and scientific knowledge in part because of the way science is taught in school:

Training in science is the preserve of a minority, an elite: to study science or to become a scientist, it helps to be male, white, middle-class, heterosexual--and from an industrialized country (2).

The authors note that at the same time, governments are showing more concern that the people understand science. The United States government publishes an annual survey of the level of scientific knowled

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emonstrations, and magazines and pamphlets. In the course of the book, the authors speak to a large number of women and report what they say about science, about their interest in science, about their sense of alienation from science, about their view of science education, and similar topics. From these interviews, different ideas emerge about the way women are treated in society, the way women have been excluded form science, and the way women are trying to change this situation by delving into issues of interest to them. It is clear that the way the world is developing, with added technology, new scientific concepts, and new discoveries occurring all the time, women have more incentive than ever to try to overcome the old system and to find the answers they need. Yet there are still barriers to be overcome. The new scientific ideas of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries challenged the prevailing assumptions of the Aristotelian/Christian paradigm. Science is an attempt to explain the natural world and to discover the truth of natural phenomena. Yet, the fact that there can be competing and incommensurable paradigms on the same subject matter shows that while science may seek "reality," at some point it can only achieve a

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