Dimensions of diversity and its importance to science

Background/Question/Methods

A familiar view of science is posits that science is conducted by dispassionate actors that avoid bias by following an invariant set of rules.  Often called “the scientific method,” this procedure treats scientists as substitutable cogs in an infallible modernist knowledge machine.  This is a view of science that is still all too common.  It is, unfortunately a philosophy that takes no account of diversity within the scientific community.  Indeed, it would tacitly deny a role of diversity within science.

Results/Conclusions

Science as a system in which diversity is key  This major conclusion is informed by social and philosophical research on the process of science itself.  First, science is a system of distinct activities and relationships with society.  The system of science consists of 1) research, 2) the creation and maintenance of a community of scientists, and 3) the complex activities that link science and the knowledge it creates in the larger society.

Diversity plays a role in all three of the components of the scientific system.  However, nowhere is it more important than in the core act of discovery.  Creative and important questions are posed, alternative models and multiple experiments are constructed, and erroneous interpretations are exposed due to the diversity of researchers.  Different researchers having different social and personal motivations for the work they do, different work and life experiences, different sets of skills, various talents, and different habits of mind, are the engaged community that together makes science work.

Furthermore, diversity facilitates the other components of the system of science – building and nurturing the community of practitioners and interacting with the public and its institutions.  The role of diversity in promoting the health of a science thus plays out on two dimensions: 1) respect and support for those who chose to focus, respectively, on research, community building, and engagement with the public; and 2) understanding and facilitating the role of diversity within the core process of research itself.  Scientific societies such as ESA can actively ensure that diversity in both these forms pays the greatest dividends to their broad fields