Not Your Grandma's Scientist

By Claire Eamer

The default image of a scientist used to be a white man -- usually with more fly-away white hair than was strictly necessary. Maybe a bit like the dude on the right...

Of course, we all know now that the image was never really accurate. After all, Crick and Watson's discovery of the nature of the DNA molecule owed a great deal to the remarkable work of Rosalind Franklin.

Our current awareness of the dangers of pesticides and similar chemicals was founded on the work and the riveting prose of biologist Rachel Carson. And the great 19th century astronomer, William Herschel, had an equally talented little sister, Caroline, who did much of his math for him and discovered three nebulae and eight comets on her own.

But still, the public face of science has all too often been a white man. Well, the times are changing (and none too soon!).

Take, for example, Evan Johnson-Ransom, a young Black grad student at Oklahoma State University whose delightful Twitter feed I discovered recently.

It's full of dinosaurs, fossils, recreations of ancient beasties, and lots of fascinating palaeo content. Especially, T. rex and its relatives -- which Mr. Johnson-Ransom hopes to spend the next few years studying. As I told him online, he is living every 8-year-old's dream!

Or how about the four young women who just started an organization called Minorities in Shark Sciences (MISS)? They're all passionate about sharks and hope to recruit more enthusiasts to join them.

But why sharks? One of the founders of the group, Carlee Jackson, said in a recent interview that she has been fascinated by sharks since the age of six, even though she grew up in shark-free Detroit. She studied marine biology in Florida, where she finally saw her first live shark in the wild. She thought it was...er...cute. But sharks are not just cute, she said. They're a vital part of the ocean ecosystem.

Sharks not your thing? How about birds? Actually, how about Dr. Letícia Soares. Originally from Brazil, she's working at the Advanced Facility for Avian Research at Western University in London, Ontario, where she studies the transmission of avian malaria in birds.

I discovered Dr. Soares on Twitter, where she was talking with great enthusiasm about birds, research, online conferences, and a certain Turquoise-fronted Amazon parrot that sings in one of the indigenous languages of Brazil. Her enthusiasm about all these topics and more is infectious.

You might notice a theme here -- Twitter. For all that it can be a nasty, poisonous place, Twitter can also open up worlds. It's a great place to find and sometimes interact with scientists of all shapes, sizes, colours, and preferences. There are even some very cool white-guy-scientists there. If you're interested in diversity in science, take a look around.

I should add, however, that diversity in science can often be found even closer to home. And it's not just the young folk. Take, for example, the president of my local university, Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo: Dr. Deb Saucier, a neuroscientist of Métis heritage and a recent recipient of the Indigenous Women in Leadership Award.

And from a previous generation, we in Canada have The Honourable Dr. Lillian Eva Quan Dyck. Daughter of a Chinese immigrant father and a Cree mother, she is a member of the Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan. After a distinguished career in neuropsychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan, she was appointed to the Canadian Senate in 2005.

Finally, if you're curious about diversity in science, here are a few articles or websites to browse:

• 6 Black Archaeologists and Anthropologists You Should Know About
• 6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism
• 9 Black Chemists You Should Know About
• 14 Inspiring Innovators From Asia
• These Powerful African Scientists Are Changing The World

You can probably think of more examples and more sources. If so, just add them in the Comments below. I'd love to learn more!

Brown Like Me: The Need for Representation in Toys

By Kiron Mukherjee

Note from the Sci/Why team: Kiron Mukherjee is ROMKids Coordinator and Camp Director for the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and a science communicator, if not a regular poster on Sci/Why. He recently wrote this article for his own online use. However, representation is just as important in science and children's literature as it is in toys, so he has kindly given us permission to reproduce his column here. CE

Kiron says: "Toby and I, hung on my Mother’s fridge,
probably in the same place since it was put up in the early 90s."
Margaret Cameron photo

Only 80s kids will remember.

Many Christmas moons ago, Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage -- depending on your generation, they were the original Hatchimals, Tamagotchi, or Tickle Me Elmo. Cabbage Patch Kids were roughly baby in size, with fabric bodies and clothes, plastic heads, and painted eyes that shone with cuteness. Every kid had to have one, and every parent wanted to make a holiday wish come true.

I got my Cabbage Patch doll when I was four. His name was Toby and Toby was brown like me. As a kindergartener, I didn’t understand race or differences in society, but I knew that Toby looked like me in a world of toys that never did.

Toby was patient, understanding, and kind. And as an only child, with my only mom, Toby was family for many of my young years.

***

Margaret Cameron, my mom, is white and the youngest of four children of farmers near Woodstock, Ontario. My father was brown and born in India, and ran away from our family shortly after I was born. I was the child of two widely different backgrounds, but with only one around to raise me.

My mom spent much of my childhood exposing me to diverse cultures and ideas, and, whenever I would let her, my Indian heritage. She was eager to share her side of our family, and I enthusiastically accepted it. But when she would engage me with my father’s side, I pushed back hard -- I was scared. I remember not wanting to be near Indian food or really anything concerning the man I had no memories of. But something I couldn’t run away from was the colour of my skin.

Like most toys, at least when I was young, Cabbage Patch Kids came in a variety of white. White girls and boys, where brown and black was saved for hair.

My mom wanted me to have a doll just like everyone else, but desired it to look like me: “I thought it was important that you saw yourself in the face of Toby, especially as everyone else in your 'blood family' circle was white.”

Beyond simply the colour of Toby’s skin, my mom had another reason for getting me my new friend: “It was still rare at the time to encourage boys to nurture and care for a baby doll. I wanted you to know that you had it in you, even though you only had me as a role model on what a parent was.”

***

Finding Toby wasn’t easy. Shelves weren’t exactly filled with diverse toy options -- most of the dolls were white. My mom was only able to get a brown boy Cabbage Patch Kid after meeting a distributor of the toys and getting it directly from him.

I played with other toys -- my mom likes to bring up the Ernie doll I was in love with as a toddler -- but it was essential to have a diverse cast of characters in my room, just like those in life.

“There were a lot of brown faces surrounding you all day with your caregivers, then you would come home to me. Toby helped populate our place and normalize the notion that there could be other people of colour in our home, even if they were only dolls. I wanted you to feel safe in your identity wherever you were.”

Kiron says: "Ernie and I, twinning."
Margaret Cameron photo

To this day, my mom doesn’t know where the name Toby comes from. I have only the faint sense that I took it from my favourite Thomas the Tank Engine character, Toby. Curiously, that Toby also has their train painted brown.

***

My mom spent so much of my childhood opening my eyes to all sorts of possibilities in the world, and the great diversity of people. But she also wanted me to value who I was as well.

“When kids are very little they look at Bert and Ernie and Elmo… and love them no matter how they look, no matter their differences. But in this case, I wanted you to have someone to look at as the same.”

In many ways, this is one of the first times I felt like I took ownership in my mixed-race identity. Though I would not truly understand the consequences of being brown in a predominantly white society until later in life, this was a small act of solidarity for who I was.

Toby was my friend, and Toby was brown like me.

Who Wants to be a Scientist?

By Claire Eamer

Okay - we're a little bit late for International Women's Day. But encouraging kids to think about science is what we're all about, here at Sci/Why. That includes girl kids and boy kids. And black, brown, white, yellow, and purple kids. (Purple??? You never know...). Kids of all sizes and abilities. And kids of every nationality.

So here are a few Canadian organizations that are trying to open up science to as many people as possible:

• The Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology - a non-profit association that promotes, encourages and empowers women and girls in science, engineering and technology.
• Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, has an Aboriginal Access to Engineering website to encourage aboriginal students to think about engineering and prepare for science and technology careers. It's got good information, whether you end up at Queen's or somewhere else.
• The Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada offers information and help for young aboriginal people who want to go into medicine.

Do you know of an organization that's helping broaden and diversify participation in science? If so, please share the information in the Comments section below.

And to inspire you, here are a few amazing scientists and bits of science that you might or might not have heard about:

• The Smithsonian's list of Ten Historic Female Scientists You Should Know About 
• And a list of 10 Famous Women Scientists 
• Here's an interesting list of African-American scientists
• And a few historic Canadian scientists of African descent 
• The most famous scientist with a disability is Stephen Hawking, but he's not the only one.
• Here's an online magazine, Science in Africa, about what African scientists are up to these days
• And another magazine, Asian Scientist, about science in modern Asia
• This site has links to four short videos about Canadian scientists trained in the western tradition who are working together with people trained in aboriginal traditional knowledge
• Finally, if you want to know more about traditional knowledge and science, check out the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network's website. 

Shaking up the Face of Science History

By Claire Eamer

History books are still dominated by the doings of a bunch of white men - and the history of science is no exception. When I was researching my book Before the World Was Ready: Stories of Daring Genius in Science, I wanted to include more variety - women, people of other races, people from other cultures.

That, I discovered, is remarkably hard to do. I combed through a lot of books and articles, and I found some names to chase down. However, even with the names, information was often scarce or incomplete or not available in a language I can read.

Still – I found some smart and fascinating people, even more than I could fit into the book. Here are a few that made the cut.

We usually credit Copernicus with the idea that Earth is not the still centre of the universe, but rather a planet that spins on its axis and revolves around the Sun. But more than a thousand years earlier, in 499 CE, a young Indian mathematician and astronomer, Aryabhata, came to the same conclusion and wrote a book setting out his explanation – all in verse. He was only 23 years old at the time. India’s first satellite, launched in 1975, was named Aryabhata in his honour.

Aryabhata explaining his ideas, as seen by illustrator Sa Boothroyd. Courtesy of Annick Press.

Still among the stars, there was Caroline Herschel. Her brother, William, was a famous astronomer in 18th-century England, but Caroline was a pretty decent astronomer herself. A childhood illness left her stunted, barely 1.3 metres tall, but it didn’t stop her. She was an opera singer, kept house for her brother, took notes while he peered through his telescope, did mathematical calculations for him, and – in her spare time – made her own observations. She discovered eight comets and several nebulae, and she was the first woman to be made an honorary member of Britain's Royal Astronomical Society. Several comets, a lunar crater, and an asteroid have been named after her.

Mary Anning was an even less likely scientist than Caroline Herschel. She was born in 1799 to a very poor family in an English seaside resort. Mary, her mother, and her brother scoured the eroding cliffs near their home for fossils to sell from a table outside their tiny cottage. At age 12, Mary brought home one of the world’s first fossil ichthyosaurs. Later she discovered a plesiosaur, a pterosaur, and much more. She eventually became as much an expert as the wealthy scientists who bought her fossils, and, after her death, the president of the Geological Society of London delivered a speech in her honour.

Mary Anning and her fossil booth, according to illustrator Sa Boothroyd. Courtesy Annick Press.

One final example: Al-Jahiz. Al-Jahiz lived about 1,200 years ago in what is now Iraq. He was born poor, probably the descendant of an African slave, but he became a famous writer. One of his most famous works was the Book of Animals. In it, he wrote about food chains, in which smaller animals are eaten by ever-larger animals, all the way from minnows to sharks, and speculated about how the behaviour and even appearance of animals can be affected by their environment – ideas that wouldn’t become major concerns of European science until people like Charles Darwin came along, almost a thousand years later, to talk about evolution.