The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Physics of Skin

The community of scientists reflects the character of the larger community of which it is part. That is to say, it is racist, misogynistic, self-deluding, and agonisingly slow to change to the same extent as the larger society. Prescod-Weinstein puts the situation bluntly: “The tradition of racism among white scientists is perhaps not surprising when we recognize that science and society co-construct one another.”

The scientific community rejects this characterisation. Of course it does. In fact it does so with considerable skill and credibility since it’s members are among the best educated, most articulate, and most respected elite of society. They are, in a word, privileged. They are also overwhelmingly male and almost exclusively white.

Naturally most of us attribute our successes to intelligence, hard work, and persistent dedication. I have no doubt that scientists feel the same way. Scientists also consider themselves and their work as ‘objective.’ This should mean that any presumptions they hold about their work are subject to change in light of further evidence. But historically such openness to evidence has never been the case. The Old Guard typically fights desperately to maintain their presumptions by dismissing such evidence as spurious, wrong, or fake.

And so it is with scientific social mores. As the author says, “Articulating scientific questions is social.” So is articulating who is admitted to the community, the judgments about whose work is credible, and even the language accepted as ‘ours’ within the community. That these social norms have resulted in prejudicial exclusion of women, people of colour, and others who don’t conform with the dominantly white male composition of the community is undeniable. So scientists largely ignore the issue. “Science thus became a process in which bias was consecrated by scientists. Racism was axiomatic, rather than a belief requiring skeptical investigation.”

Hence the author’s main point: “Studying the physical world requires confronting the social world.” The sociology of science is corrupt. It is corrupt not only because it is irrationally prejudiced about race and gender, but also because it contributes to the creation of bad science. Gottfried Leibniz was perhaps the first philosopher who, in the 17th century, recognised that what we call reality is a composite of individual viewpoints. To the extent that science is about approaching reality, it inhibits itself when it is exclusionary - no matter how unintentionally on the part of any individual scientist.

Prescod-Weinstein uses an unusual technique. Her book is a sort of intellectual memoir of her life as a cosmologist and particle physicist, and a meditation on the successful Black professional woman in the post-colonial white man’s world. This is a world not just dominated by race and gender but also one in which scientific rationality has been used consistently to justify it own prejudices: “how things worked had to be consistent with justifying abominable behavior… Science thus became a process in which bias was consecrated by scientists. Racism was axiomatic, rather than a belief requiring skeptical investigation.”

Many will object to such a blatant subjective assessment of the scientific community. Tough. It’s time to face up to the extent and persistence of the horrors of racism in the most important institutions of our society. This book may be a model for pushing that process forward.

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