Many of the recent topics in class have really shocked me, probably more so than our initial topics that mostly taught me about standpoint theory and bias in science. Bias is to be expected, though perhaps not tolerated, and stereotypes always exist in society, but the torture and violation of human rights that have recently been brought up leave me depressed after class everyday. I’ve always been a firm believer in science, though not a scientist in the least. It is an interest of mine, and I like to think that I understand it. Mainly, I’m interested in science in society. I’m always confused as to why science and technology are so contested if they seem to help us every time. Whenever bioethical issues are brought up, like GMOs or some experimental treatment, my knee jerk response is that we should trust in science and in our government that they’ll regulate it correctly so that the technology does not hurt us, but just help as that is the point of developing it in the first place.
The past few classes have really shaken me to the core, and I believe a little less in both science and our government or governments’ past abilities to regulate. I want to think that the doctors I see can be trusted, my father being one of them, and that each Tylenol I take has been developed ethically, but now I see that science has a dirty history and even a less than trusted present. Even if months after this course, I start to trust science a little more again and return to my ways of defending research, I will know that even if science is truthful to me, it has deceived and deceives minority groups and people in other countries because, as these cases prove, some scientists and certain branches of the government believe that those groups do not deserve the same information or care that I deserve because they are not white or they are poor. These make them less than human, so they may as well be lab rats.
I feel as though the first part of the course focused on dispelling myths in science about women or transgender people. We looked to the biology itself to find that research can be twisted to reflect the attitudes of society at large, often resulting in a subjugation of some kind. This second part of the course, Race and Science, talks not just about findings that would prove that certain races are lower (as I discussed in my presentation), but how science has been carried out. Meaning, not only should we be aware about what science says, but how science is done, and those ramifications as well. The topic at hand is not whether or not the scientists are right about population control or the merits of vaccination, but how those practices have been implemented. What I’ve taken from this unit has a lot more too do with the government or scientists not believing that certain groups, poor and colored, are not worthy of the education to make informed decisions and much less to do with whether or not vaccinations actually work. Whereas the first half of the course was grounded in scientific discoveries, this part used science as a lens with which to view inequalities and oppression of any kind. In class we did not have to argue about whether or not the Hep B vaccine is worth it or if birth control is ethical; we just needed to see how science can perpetrate inequalities in experimentation, not just in findings.
2 comments:
My faith in Western medicine has totally been shaken too. And what really scares me is the way it squashes out every single traditional method of practicing medicine like it isn't even remotely relevant. Like Native American holistic medicine? I'm so curious to learn more about that and the way other cultures got along before we stepped in to "help" them. Even in cases when western medicine isn't absolutely disregarding longstanding cultural practices in order to use a people in one way or another, it still debases nonwestern societies as if they have no idea what they've been doing for years. It's embarrassing. I feel bad. They only way I've ever even heard nonwestern medicine mentioned always seems to have all these conotations of being ridiculous superstitions, or some kind of voodoo or witchcraft. How much medical knowledge are we ignoring by acting like our way is the only way to make progress? And if super, better, faster medical progress requires the abuse of multiple minority groups at any given point in time (who often don't even benefit from basic healthcare - not to mention the new discoveries made at their expense) how can it be considered progress at all?
I agree with everything you have said. I am really struck by the way that science can be so flawed by bias and social constructs. Science is a discipline that seems so infallible and supported by evidence. Through this class, it has become clear that the evidence does in fact exist, but that the method of interpretation often involves bias.
Another important point that I learned from class is how throughout history scientists have used science as a means to legitimize certain beliefs and belief systems. The credibility that science lent to such often sexist and racist beliefs is unfortunate and in retrospect, quite incorrect.
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