As I’m doing a lot of preparation for my trip to South Africa, I have neither the time nor the will to dissect the article below, a piece that appeared in The Journal of Chemical Education. As is so often the case with these articles that try to use science education to create what they call “Social Justice”, it’s poorly written, illustrated with childish and uninformative figures, and—worse—so poorly argued that I can’t even see its main point. It has something to do with teaching chemistry in a more “inclusive” way, but gives no serious methodology for doing so beyond talking about social justice in chemistry class. In the end, it’s simply a performative act that says, “Hey, there’s real structural racism in chemistry, and we two chemists are on the side of the minoritized. ” Click below to read, or download the pdf here.
Below there’s also a critique of this article by Jordan Beck; a critique published in Heterodox STEM.
Just a few excepts from the article above to give a sense of its inanity, and AI-style boilerplate:
Sexism, racism, queerphobia, and ableism (among many other forms of discrimination) continue to permeate society and culture. Existing as a multiply marginalized individual exacerbates these inequities. Intersectionality as a concept was described in the academic literature by Crenshaw in 1989, explaining how individuals could experience specific, compounded discrimination, not simply additive.
These societal inequities are reflected and reproduced in chemistry. Stereotypes about who can and cannot succeed in chemistry persist, in combination with inequality of participation and research funding success statistics, leading to homogeneity in groups communicating and conducting scientific research. Important work has highlighted the contributions of racially minoritized chemists in curricula, which is a key aspect of teaching chemistry both in schools and in postcompulsory education. Chemistry-specific inequities also include privileging only certain, narrow forms of “expert” scientific knowledge, e.g., prioritizing academic language which advantages the dominant cultural groups of chemistry students, graduates, and academics–an “untranslatable code” for those outside. This leads to individuals who do not see themselves as “properly” scientific or think that genuine fears of chemistry and/or chemicals will be dismissed, developing chemophobic attitudes. Therefore, when trying to challenge chemophobia, we have to consider these structural factors to avoid reinforcing existing views of being excluded, patronized, or dismissed. This social justice lens builds on previous models of chemophobia to explicitly identify these structures, highlighting additional challenges faced by marginalized group
These sense of this, insofar as it has any sense, is that the emphasis on merit in chemistry, and the use of language that conveys chemical concepts, is bigoted and creates “chemophobia.”
There’s more:
However, very little literature on chemophobia specifically considers structural factors, e.g., systemic racism, sexism, or unequal access to education, and where research identifies that certain marginalized subgroups in a population are more likely to endorse chemophobic attitudes, this is rarely interrogated or explained.
Maybe there isn’t that much literature on systemic racism in chemistry because there’s not that much systemic racism (i.e. formally codified discrimination) in chemistry.
And here’s how to fix chemophobia (there’s a long list given as well, but you can read it for yourself). The upshot: we need more DEI!
However, a small but growing number of papers integrate social justice considerations, including Goeden and colleagues, who describe a community-based inquiry that improved critical thinking in allied health biochemistry. Livezey and Gerdon both describe teaching practices that integrate DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) practices and explicitly link chemistry with social justice; these authors found that the social justice focus of the teaching promoted student engagement from those who were already involved in STEMM courses and those who, in their own words, “honestly did not like science”, and improved learners’ understanding of chemistry and wider scientific issues through course content that was relevant to their experiences and interests.
Again, the authors are using chemistry to advance their notion of social justice, which includes effacing the dubious “systemic racism” of the field. I think it would be better just to bring more minorities into chemistry by widening the net, furthering equal opportunity, and teaching chemistry—real chemistry—in an interesting way.
Like me, Jordan Beck is weary of papers like this. Click to read, and I’ll give one excerpt below. There is no branch of science immune from this kind of performative virtue signaling:
From Beck:
Thus, I really struggle when articles like this chemophobia paper come through because when these topics come up, journals seem to lose any pretense of rigor and relevance—anything goes under the DEI flag. Such papers also promote ideas that I consider to be detrimental to the science. The chemophobia article is only a commentary, but it still bothers me.
The remainder of this post consists of select passages from the commentary with my commentary in response. All quotes are from the commentary.
The Palmer and Sarju paper starts with a figure that I’ve put below along with Beck’s analysis.
The figure, which constitutes an insult to the intelligence of not just academics, but anyone. It adds nothing beyond what’s said in the paper’s text:
Beck’s take:
It is difficult to summarize exactly what the figure is meant to convey, but it seems like the idea is that we need some sort of rainbow lens to disrupt the uniformity of the people in the sciences. It is better, in this view, to label each scientist with a particular label so that we can understand how “differential access to education” is leading to “cognitive overload”. I maintain the notion, which for one reason or another now seems to be outdated or taboo, that I really don’t care about the sexual orientation of the authors of a journal article that I am reading. In fact, if you can believe it, I didn’t even think about trying to determine the gender or sexual orientation of the authors of the article that I just reviewed. The top picture, where all the scientists are the same, has some merit. They can be judged simply by what they contribute.
Frankly, I’m losing my willingness to take apart papers like this because they’re all the same. I can suggest only two things to the authors. First, if you want more diversity in chemistry, work on giving children more opportunity to encounter chemistry, not DEI-ize the way chemistry is taught. Second, learn to write, as your prose is turgid and, surprisingly, laden with jargon that obscures the meaning of your text.
OMG
This exudes gnosticism.
Maybe I can as usual give the following reference as a good short piece on it’s influence, to help recognize gnosticism :
Science, Politics, and Gnosticism
Eric Voegelin
1968, 1997
Regenery Press, Chicago;
Washington D.C.
How could a chemistry journal leave out the most awful of all phobias…
…hydrophobia!
You’d think some of these rabid DEI advocates would point that out!
An initial attempt at a blunt translation:
“When an undereducated member of a minority is afraid of a chemical in their water or food, don’t use an analysis of the chemistry involved to show the fear isn’t justified because that’s using science to make yourself better than them. They’ll end up hating chemistry. Instead, accept their emotional evidence and praise them for expanding what we now all know, allowing them to campaign against that chemical as a further act of social justice. You’ll draw more interested students or young chemists because who doesn’t love a good march or a virtuous petition?”
Is that what they’re aiming at? Don’t know. I fear that asking the authors or their advocates wouldn’t help because clarity doesn’t seem to be their friend.
A good but over-looked example of just that point is the ongoing suspicion about city water in the Flint Michigan area. This was worldwide news, apparently, but several years ago the water was contaminated with lead that leached from old pipes when the state of Michigan ill-advisedly switched the source of water to a different one, and those in charge of this switch deeply failed to take in account the different chemistry of the new water source, and so they failed to pre-treat the water properly. A large population that is mainly African American had lead contaminated water from the old pipes, people got sick, and children were even damaged by lead. Although the water problem is now mostly fixed, there is still a very deep distrust of assurances from state officials, with many people still staying on bottled water.
That tragedy would present a great opportunity to teach chemistry thru a social justice lens. But the paper makes no mention of what should now be a classic case of social justice in chemistry.
The Flint example is why thorough understanding of technical chemical jargon is important. Interesting that the paper’s authors have it backwards: you don’t help minority communities by dumbing down chemistry so that people in those communities don’t have to work so hard to understand it; you help them by supporting them so that they can understand it better.
For me, I understand technical language in any of the physical sciences, even ones I have only limited exposure to, much better than the social justice philosophy papers that I’ve tried to read.
+1 to all 3 of the comments.
Technical writing seeks to be clear and precise; social justice writing seeks to be deliberately obscure (thereby seeming profound, when all too often there is no there there).
I am confused about what level of education the authors are discussing: High-School? College? Graduate school? I had to take Chemistry in high-school, and I didn’t feel that I needed more context (but it was much easier then, since there were only four elements), whereas that would have definitely helped with Calculus. Certainly, we’ve all seen bad instructors in Math and Science, and probably seen students turn-off in those classes. I don’t know that this has anything to do with diversity. I am certainly open, though, to ideas for the improvement of teaching—so long as they are improvements, and not dumbing down content.
“it was much easier then, since there were only four elements”
OK, that was funny.
Not really that surprising at all… because if it was written in plain English then the absurdity would be evident. Many others (like sophisticated theologians or sophisticated philosophers) write like this – each phrase bending meaning a little until the complete chain of jargon ends up somewhere else entirely.
Ah, “sophisticated theology” then.
I used to be a chemist, about a hundred years ago, and I was taught by some seriously good chemists: in particular, the senior fellows at my college, the late Paul Kent and Richard Wayne, and Raymond Dwek (not that I necessarily expect anyone else to have heard of them). I was also tutored in German by the great AS Russell, who was over 90 at the time, and liked to add comments to our conversation such as “As I said to Nernst in 1904…”
They were all enthusiasts for the subject, and would all have been appalled by the sloppiness and intellectual vacuity of this dreadful article. Richard died last year, but it would have been bracing to hear what he would have said about it. I hope chemistry will rise above such philistinism; we will really be in trouble if it doesn’t.
It’s pretty stunningly ironic for the sorts of people who write papers like this one to complain about “academic language which advantages the dominant cultural groups of chemistry students, graduates, and academics–an ‘untranslatable code’ for those outside”. Coming up with incomprehensible jargon that serves as an “untranslatable code” is the go-to strategy of the “DEI” crowd. And the highly technical language of professional chemists actually *means* something, invariably something extremely precise.
To paraphrase (a perhaps fictional) Ben Franklin: Cant is always bad in the third-person—their cant—but is always good in the first person—our cant.
I was thinking the exact same thing. The language of any scientific field is highly technical because words need to describe the intricacies of the information. It requires years of study, but it is a gradual process of building knowledge. Maybe the authors’ point is that some of the groups supposedly disadvantaged by this should be given the opportunity to become chemists without ever needing to learn actual chemistry because they are too dumb to ever learn it? I can’t help but read these kinds of papers as racist/ sexist / etc-ist against the very groups that the authors are trying to advocate for.
I know most of the folks reading this on this site see these items and have a similar take to our host. However, keep in mind that there are probably more individuals at these institutions who read this stuff and nod their heads knowingly and appreciate the wisdom of the paper.
Maybe if Scientific American brought back its Amateur Scientist column and quit with their politicized junk more people would realize that the physical sciences are indeed accessible to all.
They seem to tout “stereotype threat”, or the notion that negative stereotypes are holding back minority groups. This theory has shown to be false in many recent studies.
Also, the most revealing passage is when they claim that students who dislike science welcome the intrusion of DEI into it. It means that “social justice” is just something for people who don’t like science and don’t want to learn it.
“… Click below to read.”
Would have, but found a sharp stick to poke in my eyes at the last minute.
Can I borrow that stick please? 🙂
No, I’ll angry-read it later tonight b/c I’m a masochist.
We need Anna Kirlov on this case. Put up the batlight over Gotham for the smart ex-soviet woke killing superhero Anna.
D.A.
NYC
Hahahahaha
You have the patience of a saint (if you’ll pardon the expression). I find it difficult even to read this stuff, much less dissect it. Thank you for taking one for the team!
I find it rich indeed for post-modernists to criticize scientists for their specialized language. That criticism is laughable! Chemistry is accessible to those who have an interest and who take the time and effort to learn the subject. I was a geology professor during my first career. The hardest course I ever took in the field was physical geology, the first course geology students take. It was one new vocabulary word after the other! Rather when whine about how science is so inaccessible, do what it takes to access it and you’ll be richly rewarded.
Back in 1970 at the old British O-A level divide I had to pick three subjects to study further. I picked maths, physics and chemsitry. About half of the class elected to stay on. Most chose physics and double maths.
Only three of us chose chemistry for the final two years. Our school was effectively white, but even white privilege was not enough to overcome chemophobia in the majority.
I was a few years later (1975) but recall making similar decisions and ending up with chemistry/physics/biology/gen studies with an OA in Math and stats – the latter tedious at the time but since pure gold in explaining the world around me. We had a fairly strong chemistry class and about 60/40 M/F given our all male grammar school (which had a strong bent towards University as an outcome) merged with the equivalent local female school at the same time. Not all white either.
But Lord knows about how we expressed ourselves on the LGBQT alphabet!
Pharmacy at Uni was 50/50 M/F with a strong Asian ancestry representation and I’ve ended up as a pharmacist working in New Zealand where the profession is predominantly female – but all will have a strong science background too…….
I discovered, after getting an “A” in A-level chemistry, that I was the first person to pass A-level chemistry at my not-so-wonderful comprehensive. I suspect I only passed because I loved the questions in organic chemistry that required me to imagine synthesizing one molecule from another, however unlikely or inefficient the imagined processes would be. My difficulty with it was that there was, at that time and that level, no understanding of why chemical reactions proceeded as they did: one just had to learn what happened rather than work it out. I think that may have changed since with better understanding of electron energy levels.
That was in the era when there was a brief experiment in allowing Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics as entry requirements for medical school, the Mathematics substituting for Biology. I did Biology for my third A-level (and did an S-level in it too) and I’m glad I did. Math would have been useless in medical school, whereas Biology was actually relevant.
“It is important to avoid deficit-centered approaches in unpicking these alternative conceptions and challenging chemophobia.”
In other words: When students don’t “enjoy” chemistry, it should simply be ignored that the reason may be a lack of intelligence, a lack of talent, a lack of interest, or a lack of effort on their part.
I am a young(ish) professor of chemistry who has been deeply upset by how prevalent anti-scientific attitudes have gotten in the hard sciences. However, I do not see this article as an example!
While I understand of recoiling at social justice language and imagery liked used in this article, I think in this case, the overall spirit of the article ought to by lauded. Chemophobia is a serious obstacle to establishing good government policy towards the chemical industry and in getting young people interested in chemistry careers. It makes a lot of sense to me that people’s different backgrounds and education experiences might require different approaches to overcoming fear of chemicals and distaste for chemistry. If we can achieve this for a broader audience, then I am all for it.
I believe we should save our ire for woke science that lowers the quality and standards of education, whereas this seems to be a sincere effort to bring a greater number of people up to higher standards. I fear we are becoming too reflexive in opposing anything that looks coded as progressive. Just because our ideological opponents have closed their minds does not mean we should follow suit!
Fair point that chemophobia¹ can be reduced by means other than teaching the victim chemistry, which of course in many cases is difficult or impossible. Maybe have a “science for poets”-type class. But since phobias are by definition irrational, how about counselling? Or maybe a health ed class that covers thinking productively about scary stuff, with practical exercises. After all, irrational fears are usually social constructs 🙂.
—–
¹ An ugly neologism IMO.
No. DEI in its many manifestations is not about expanding the outreach to minority communities in the US but lowering standards and subverting the meritocracy to improve the employment stats of subpar US minority students. I’ve been in the chemistry industry for 25 years and the proportion of minorities and women in chemistry has been growing rapidly. How? By allowing tens of thousands of better trained and highly qualified students from schools in India, China, Korea, Europe, and Japan to immigrate here in huge numbers, go to grad school, become US citizens, and land jobs in top tier companies. It is NOT so much achieved by community outreach to scientifically underperforming groups across the US (“chemophobic” for whatever reasons) to get them interested in chemistry or to overcome their phobias by rehabilitation.
The article itself implicitly admits the DEI agenda by crudely combining lower access to education with systemic racism and sexism (where exactly?!) as the explanation for low minority representation in this field and then fusing it into a fragile and poorly blended alloy called chemophobia:
“However, very little literature on chemophobia specifically considers structural factors, e.g., systemic racism, sexism, or unequal access to education, and where research identifies that certain marginalized subgroups in a population are more likely to endorse chemophobic attitudes, this is rarely interrogated or explained.“
So why are so many people of color entering the chemistry field but just happen not to be US born? Chemophobia? The question always is not how to reduce the fear of chemistry (on your account) among minorities in the US but to explain why they are so less competent than foreigners of their same skin tone? It doesn’t appear to me to be racism… it comes back to the hard part – training, hard work, sustained effort, smarts, and individual CHOICE. Free choice may lead to unequal outcomes and non-representative distributions of people across many demographics in a specific field. So what?
I’ll make a wild guess that they’ve never heard of Percy Lavon Julian.
Regarding the use of obscure and excluding language, what was that website that analysed DEI language, word by word, in a rather cynical way ? Can’t find it anymore, I know it was linked here on WEIT sometime ago, but when…?