Like Science Babe, but queer as fuck

I'm J. I'm an ecology/plant biology grad student - I study really awesome (but kind of boring if you aren't me or my advisor) plant physiology. But this blog (mostly) isn't about that - this is a space for me (and anyone who wants to contribute) to talk about science, politics, identity, queerness, and all the intersections thereof. I probably won't update as much as I should, but keep an eye here for more.

[mintsharpie]

Outside one of the labs at school.

[science-dyke]

Yes good.

[science-dyke]

I wish there was, like, a queer signal beacon I could project out at big events like this. There are hundreds of people here, there have to be at least a few of us.

[science-dyke]

Thinking about ways of decoupling biotechnology and capitalism. I know there's some open source GMO work, I just wish it were more well known.

[science-dyke]

Re: Journal articles

I’ll probably include links to journal articles in my posts. I will try to include open access links whenever possible, but sometimes I can’t find them. If you’d like to read an article you can’t get access to, send me an ask and I’ll send you a link to the file privately. If you ask anon, I’ll try to find a link to a PDF uploaded somewhere open access and post that link, but I won’t always be able to. 

Similarly, if there’s an article you want but don’t have access to, send me an ask (again, off-anon please) and I’ll see if I can get you a copy. What’s the point of having university journal access if I can’t share it, right? 

(Also, often if you email the corresponding author of a paper requesting a copy, they’ll just send you one - researchers want people to read their work!) 

[science-dyke]

Science can’t be apolitical

I took three classes last semester (theoretically my last semester of classes in grad school). One was a Bayesian stats class, which isn’t quite relevant to this post. The other two were totally unrelated - different departments, different focuses - but were awesomely synced up in a lot of ways.

One was Climate Change Science and Policy, co-taught by professors in ecology, natural resources, economics, and political science. The other was a gender studies dept. class in “feminist science studies” - we looked at toxic pollutants from a feminist perspective. 

The two classes started in very different places, but eventually brought me to this conclusion - scientists have to stop pretending our work is apolitical. We have to understand the ramifications of what we do, see through potential consequences, and stand up for our values in a more overtly political way. As my climate change class described potential future policy options and the kinds of regulations we needed, my gender studies class demonstrated over and over the failures of industry to regulate itself or for our government to regulate it for us.

I think about this a lot with respect to climate change. Too long have climate scientists presented the facts of the potential catastrophes global warming can and will cause, thinking that policy makers will take that information and create policy that will deal with it. But it doesn’t work like that - it’s never worked like that. From dioxins (the toxins you get from incinerating plastics) to diluted bitumen (tar sand crude oil), scientific research points to harm but industry lobbying keeps government from acting. 

Obviously the scientific community can’t be everything against the petrochemical and fossil fuel industries, and obviously not all scientists have the same politics. But there are places we agree, and there are stronger positions we can take. Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows call for more direct (and radical) policy recommendations from scientists publishing climate research. We can speak with a stronger voice for the environment (and for communities who are going to be most strongly affected) and against big business. 

I commented that my Bayes class wasn’t as relevant to this post, but Bayesian thinking should inform us here. We’ve had a prior belief (that policy makers will listen to facts and make appropriate regulations) and years of data showing this doesn’t work. So maybe we should update our beliefs and recognize that we have to take a more forceful stand.

[science-dyke]

Coming soon!