Quickies
Quickies: Female scientists, religious substance abuse programs, and the vitamin E myth
- Awareness of female scientists is so bad that 12% of people asked to name one picked a dude instead – And though asked to name a living scientist, 68% responded with Marie Curie.
- Victory for atheist denied parole for not attending religious substance abuse program – From Criticaldragon1177.
- Female circumcision on the rise in the US – From Michael.
- Beauty myths: Vitamin E and scarring – “Despite the damning evidence that you probably should not put Vitamin E on a scar, this myth continues to bounce around, particularly on sites that advocate for home remedies and on sites about body piercing and modification.”
Does Bug Girl count?
She better! She’s one of my favorites, after all.
Jane Goodall is one of my favorite people so she came to mind easily, but I must admit that coming up with a second famous example is tough. But then I’m not sure I could name more than a handful of non-physician men scientists that are famous. It not only points to the lack of high-profile women in STEM but I think also to the general lack of scientific awareness in general.
Now I feel inadequate, looks like it’s time to surf for some interesting science.
TO THE INTERNET! Wait, that’s where I am already…
In Britain many people have heard of Helen Sharman (a chemist who was Britain’s first astronaut) and Maggie Aderin-Pocock (a space scrientist who took over the ‘Sky at Night’ programme after the death of Patrick Moore). Both are famous female scientists although they didn’t gain their fame directly from their work in science.
Amanda
“Awareness of female scientists is so bad that 12% of people asked to name one picked a dude instead – And though asked to name a living scientist, 68% responded with Marie Curie.”
Marie Curie.is dead, so that’s like an epic fail. We need to educate more people about women who were scientists.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’d be dead by now even if she hadn’t been around so much radium.
My first thought was of Mayim Bialik (more famous for her acting career), but mostly because I’ve got “woomongers who should know better” (She has a neuroscience degree…and she’s an anti-vaxxer.) on the brain right now.
Interesting about clitoridectomy. It’s not surprising how hard it is to prosecute; child abuse rarely is, and the motive for clitoridectomy is pure ignorance. Superstition, if you will.
The most difficult part, and I encountered this yea many years ago on a blog, is that it’s also exploited as an “At least we’re not…THEM!”. (Notice Dawkins’ “Dear Muslima” letter.) And of course there are those Westerners who make this issue all about them. (I’ve encountered these types. I’ll say no more.)
What stuns me about people naming Marie Curie as a living scientist is that… I always thought she was partly famous for being dead. Like, the two facts I always assumed everyone knew about Marie Curie were 1. She worked with radioactive materials and 2. She died as a result. I can understand that if someone knows very little about science and scientists they might not have a good grasp on how realistic it is a given person might still be alive (that’s a problem, but I understand it). But Marie Curie is actually one of the only female scientists whose cause of death I know off the top of my head. … In fact, I think she might be one of the only scientists of any gender whose cause of death I know off the top of my head.
Mankoi,
Apparently a lot of people only have an idea as to what she did, not when she did it, otherwise they would know that its very unlikely that she would still be alive, even if they didn’t know how she died.
I can only come up with Lily the Pink. Does she count?