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Reading Tobias keeps reminding me of thoughts from the discussion we had last Monday, February 12th on Trawelk and Wertheim's theories. One of the important questions we discussed was what sort of change the physics community needs: either a one-time affirmative action program to get women to a critical mass or, as Wertheim advocated for, a complete change in the nature of the discipline, to shift focus away from this search for an ethereal truth. This question greatly parallels a similar question we are confronting in my Global Health course. To achieve a higher health status in a population: is it more effective to spend huge amounts of money on research to find a "magic bullet" biomedical intervention, such as a vaccine or supplement or is it more effective to spend that money on economic and social development programs? This discussion was sparked by a discussion of Thomas McKeown's theory on TB, which you can read more about at the bottom of the page here. There is a great deal of evidence that biomedical interventions alone are not enough to promote population health.

I chose to bring in this example because I think it clearly illustrates the question we are discussing here. Is the goal of medicine to understand the human body or to make people better? Should physicists do what is necessary to find a supreme truth or to, as Wertheim says Keller said (251) should they "choose our scientific projects on the basis of well-thought-out and conscious intentions" with ethical concerns in mind? This may bring up several negative images. For me that image is of Dickens' Mrs. Jellyby so consumed with the needs of others that she does not engage in her daily life. However, what is the alternative? And wouldn't this new kind of science with its different aims naturally need to include women and minorities in order to include a diversity of perspectives? I know it sounds idealistic, but I couldn't help clinging to this idea in the days after class.