Knight Science Journalism @MIT

Science Journalism in the Public Interest

by Paul Raeburn / December 12th 2014

The 13 boldest ideas in science: If you wear lipstick and pearls…

(Update 12/13: A Tracker reader notes that Alexandra Witze is a correspondent for Nature and a contributing writer for Science News, two publications that might, in part, be seen as competing with New Scientist. I don’t think her employment detracts from the point she’s making.)

“Get your head around the 13 boldest ideas in science,” NewScientist commands us.

O.K.–I’m in! I don’t have a subscription to NewScientist, but I can tell just from the teasers in front of the paywall that this is cool stuff. Higher Dimensions. Quantum Reality. Infinity. Deep Time. And on and on–a baker’s dozen of ’em.

Yet something tugs at me. What is it about these ideas that I find disturbing? I see, but I do not observe. What Is it?

Ah, yes.

Screen Shot 2014-12-12 at 1.32.28 PM

All 13 ideas come from men.

Try again, NewScientist?

-Paul Raeburn

 (Thanks to Alexandra Witze for tweeting, and to Jim Handman for pointing me to her tweet.)

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jim Handman says

    You miss the point. These 13 male scientists did not actually discover the “bold ideas” – they were merely chosen to explain them. Surely there are 13 female scientists in the entire world (or even at one university) who are capable of explaining difficult ideas.

  3. Chileno says

    Women of course, play an important role in science, and increasingly they are also shaping the way science advances. However, the New Scientist is listing the BOLDEST ideas, and – like it or not – I would be very hard pressed to identify anything BOLD (in the sense of this listing) invented by a woman. Particularly Theoretical Physics has been, is, and probably will be for a while dominated by men. Not everything can be nor should be submitted to political correctness and feminist claims.