`Amma,' `Didi' to double the number of women CMs.
The third one may come as a bit of a surprise. This is Jane Goodall, the celebrated primatologist, in the news this week for having two children's books written about her. Her pathbreaking studies in primatology started with a childhood gift from her father, a toy chimpanzee called Jubilee. Goodall is best known for her studies of the social behaviour of chimpanzees. She lived among the chimpanzees in Gombe National Park in Kenya, and is credited with the first observations of tool making in non-human primates, and for exploding the belief that chimpanzees were vegetarians. She also observed evidence of mental traits like reasoning, abstraction, symbolic representation and a sense of self among chimpanzees, which had been thought to be unique to humans upto that point. Jane's studies were criticised for not following the strict, impersonal norms of primate studies which were followed at that point, like giving names to the chimpanzees she observed, instead of numbers, as was thought to be more `objective'. This lack of `objectivity' was supposed to contribute to the `anthropomorphic' conclusions of her study. However, many of her conclusions have been validated by other studies.
In a recent interview, Dr. Goodall was asked a question on what she thought were the reasons for which women, by and large, stayed away from scientific careers. To paraphrase loosely, she said that this might be because science was thought to be a career where empathy and intuition, two traits which she said were pronounced in girls, were squashed out in favour of coldness which was equated with objectivity. She also said that scientists should be human beings first, and scientists next, and empathy and intuition should be taken advantage of, and the conclusions drawn using these traits should be tested out in the light of rationality. This is a truly unique message and surely worth thinking about.
Quote of the week: `If you have a dream as a child, follow it even if people laugh at you for it, as they laughed at me.'- Jane Goodall.
This post is by Neelima Gupte and Sumathi Rao.
5 comments:
Wonderful quote.
And what are the two children's books about Jane just released? I haven't heard anything about this, would like to.
Incidentally, following the comment on an earlier post, I have gone and purchased a brand new copy of Rags, Borya and the Rocket. Seems more satisfying to turn the pages than to read a (significant) excerpt on the web. My daughter is looking forward to getting the book.
I think it's a bit of an overstatement to say that emphathy and intuition are exclusively feminine traits. Many men do possess these traits in fair measure, although the manifestation of these traits may be quite different from that in women.
As for intuition being antithetical to 'cold' science, I see even less reason to accept this as a valid statement. As we know, informed intuition plays a significant role in research and discovery in almost all scientific disciplines, from the most empirical to the most abstract.
Thanks for a heartening post!
vbalki left a post that wouldn't get published. Here it is:
vbalki has left a new comment on your post "Three ladies ":
I think it's a bit of an overstatement to say that empathy and intuition are exclusively feminine traits. Many men do possess these traits in fair measure, although the manifestation of these traits may be quite different from that in women.
As for intuition being antithetical to 'cold' science, I see even less reason to accept this as a valid statement. As we know, informed intuition plays a significant role in research and discovery in almost all scientific disciplines, from the most empirical to the most abstract.
Meena, the two children's books are `The Watcher', and `Me, Jane'. We already discussed this, but I'm leaving this comment in case anyone else is interested. Jane Goodall has also written some children's books herself. As we said, none of this is going to give JoAnne Rowling a complex.
Secondly, Bala's point about empathy and intuition not being a female prerogative. It's of course perfectly true, that they are not, any more than logic and reason are a male prerogative. It is, however, true that the role of intuition and empathy are played down in the presentation, and therefore the public perception of science. As Bala says, all
working scientists draw on intuition. Unfortunately, they almost never tell anyone this. Maybe recreational mathematics (see Rahul's post on Martin Gardner) and science can go some way towards
rectifying this omission.
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