Diversity: beyond issues of fairness?

While humans are an extremely diverse population, there will always be groups that we either identify with or don’t identify with in terms of our picture of ourselves. After last week’s discussion on diversity I kept thinking about how productivity may be different in either diverse or not diverse groups. I agree that diverse populations (in thinking, culture, etc.) will be more productive as a group and from my own experience I’ve found that I am more comfortable throwing out new ideas or thinking in a broader sense when I feel as though everyone is coming from a different background (of thought etc.). The sense of being judged seems to be diminished and there isn’t a feeling that one person’s ideas are superior to anyone else’s. I think in a homogenous group people will be more productive in terms of agreeing and working more quickly, but they will be unable to have certain viewpoints and some ideas that people do have may not be expressed because they feel as though they may be looked down upon for not having as ‘good’ of an idea. People want to identify with the majority, since this is often seen as superior, and then downplay ways that separate themselves from the dominant view. By doing this, we lose different viewpoints and ways of thinking since people (who as we determined are very different from one another) want to repress how they are different.

I had a problem with the article saying that people in homogenous cultures are more comfortable and less afraid of their neighbors (and maybe more productive). While these people may feel this in the particular sub-culture, the in-group out-group bias would most likely be much stronger and the feeling of being uncomfortable and more afraid of their neighbors if their neighborhood suddenly was combined with another would be much greater than in an already diverse group of people. This would lead to the entire society as being less productive since the two groups would not interact with one another and would lead to tension, as people have described (Rwanda, Serbia, etc.). As I said in class, I didn’t notice diversity when it was there but notice it now when I feel like I’m in a less diverse environment. I believe this was because where I went to school there wasn’t a feeling of any type of group being superior to one another, but simply different.

To be comfortable we need to see all diversity as equal and not superior to one another. This issue gets back to last week’s discussion of disability when we think of genetically engineering a child. Today many parents are terminating pregnancies when they find out that their child would have Down syndrome. While this is often viewed as a disease, it could in fact be seen as diversity in the human population. By eliminating this we are making the difference even greater. If designing a child goes beyond this, the group differences will become more obvious and in this cause more tension (as spoken about before).

Lastly, I wanted to comment on the issue or mental vs. physical diversity. While I agree that we shouldn’t just lump the two together, I think we need to acknowledge that physical diversity is going to lead to different experiences by different people. These various experiences and cultures in which they grew up can lend itself to mental diversity that may indeed correlate with physical diversity (whether it be race, gender, where we live, or something else). Experiences and culture certainly influence how people think and are an important aspect of the diversity of human society.

Like Elliot, I wasn't able to attend last week's session (we were at a conference with our lab in Utah), so I think I will probably repeat some of what was discussed in class but hopefully will touch on it in a new (diverse?) way.

i think one of the most interesting quotes put out there, that didn't get much feedback from all the above discussions was the one that was apparently posed by andrea: "why if its so (biologically) advantageous is diversity something with struggle with so much?" I think this is a really interesting question to pose... do we struggle with diversity because we have "higher" mental function? interestingly, if you read some literature discussing other species, animals also seem to have problems-- take the very simple example of pack behavior in wolves or clans in chimps. These have been described as furthering their own genetic pool (if your family lives so do genes related to you, hence darwinian heritance), but isn't this too a form of animal attempt to homogenize their surroundings? Okay, so i understand that this example is a bit of a stretch, but i think it brings up a very important issue about how we believe that problems with diversity (and the struggles therein) is partially a social construct (which brings us back to last weeks ideas about society as an all encompassing force).

if we talk about this in terms of the "designer baby" example: what defines the traits and characteristics we want in our child? society does. if society said all of a sudden that life past 40 wasn't worth living, then would having a child with a disease that hit past 40 be so bad? probably not. (admittedly, another extreme example). I think this is quite scary, because it means that the 'line' about what is acceptable to choose in your child, and how much power you are allowed to have, is defined by a volatile constantly changing entity- society. I really feel that many of these things are a matter of choice, and therefore it should be the child's right to choose-- ex. cochlear implants should be a choice on the part of hte child not the parent. however, i understand this idea brings up problems of its own because then what about the severe diseases which affect ability to function (both mentally/physically). its a complex issue that I struggle with-- and Im not sure there is any right way to approach it or one right answer.

lastly, i just wanted to touch on the fact that I think professors grobstein's points are really relevant here-- our advances in science and technology have been amazing and shouldn't go to waste. however, i think they should be used to FURTHER the diversity, through understanding-- ex. what brought it about in the first place, if/why it is necessary for survival, etc. its really important that we realize that diversity is around for a reason, and we can benefit from that more fully if we create an accepting space to do so.

As we discussed in class on Tuesday, there is no easy definition for diversity; it can be placed within the realm of the genetic, physical, experiential, and so on. My personal feeling is that diversity is not solely one of these, but rather diversity exists in the absence of homogeneity. I also have to put forward the opinion that there is not hierarchy of diversity, in that one should seek one type of diversity preferentially. I felt that the example of the body as a summation of a diversity of cells as inadequate to discuss the topic, or at least the mental/experiential aspect of diversity. Cells in the body are diverse, however, they do not experience their diversity in the same way a mind experiences it. I believe someone brought up the idea that diversity begets diversity, in that personal background affects experience, and thus mental diversity. Alex T. (I believe) brought up the need not to discount diversity of experience, a point with which I agree. Just the scope and breadth of the discussion was indicative of the vastly different experiences we have had as a class.

Throughout the discussion the same idea kept popping into my head, but I was unable to fit it in to the discussion, somewhat of an alternate example to that of Paul’s NASA example. Just as diversity creates a synergy that is beneficial for the whole, homogeneity can do just the opposite. When one examines cases of ethnic cleansing in Croatia and Serbia in the mid-1990s or Rwanda in the same period, one can see that the groups that perpetrated and planned the killings were built around a singular purpose: creating a homogeneous state. Essentially, extremism begets extremism, which in this case was a lack of diversity of opinions; as there was no moderate voice to counterbalance the extreme push towards violence. This domino effect begins with ignorance and fear of others, thus the need for a push to have diversified institutions. I do feel that our educational systems, especially those which will generate our leaders, need experience with diversity as much as our institutions need diversity of experience.

My comment will not be as "enlightened" as the others because I cut out early for health reasons, so I hope at least someone mentioned the Putnam article.

While not entirely germane to the topic of diversity, I must admit I was a little let down by Putnam. Not that he found this effect, but that he waited so long and did so much more research to find another cause simply because the results flew in the face of his morals. Had he found that diversity increased social capital, would he have sought another cause for this effect or would he have stopped in smug satisfaction without investigating so thoroughly other potential causes for this particular effect.

I had always thought of science as a “just the facts, ma’am” field which lay beyond reproach or at the very least beyond the scope of politics and subjective morals. But stories such as these make me wonder if other scientists are sitting on presumably “un-PC” data for fear of promoting viewpoints they don’t necessarily agree with. What does such a practice do to the objectivity of science? How can on ethically use results to drive policy decisions, such as how to integrate individuals of diverse backgrounds, with such a subjective and context-specific skew to the data?

I actually discussed this in my own personal blog a few months ago, and I invite others to read it and the comments which follow.

http://juxtacidic.livejournal.com/44320.html

Hey guys. When I was thinking back to our discussion last Tuesdsay I found it interesting that the group kept coming back to the question of where we set the limit on diversity. I think most would agree that it is beneficial to have different opinions and backgrounds represented in such a place as a college, and that likewise this may have some link to the degree of racial or religious diversity present on a campus. However, where do we draw the line of diversity?  Many argued that theoretically if we strive for more diversity, especially when talking about mental diversity, we must also include diversity of intelligence. What is the difference, some may ask, in accepting students who are unable to perform at high levels in academics under the assumption that they will provide a type of intellectual diversity, and accepting students of different backgrounds to provide for "opinion" diversity? And along those lines, and bringing up something someone mentioned I think during our broken brain discussion, who is to say that people who speak different languages would not also provide a degree of diversity? It is easy to see how this type of diversity might prove to be a seperating and confusing rather than a uniting and creating factor. However, I don't think that these examples undermine the entirety of the diversity = productivity equation.

It seems that there should simply be a limit set on this equation, a set population of individuals for which this equation could ring true, and I think that limit is the ability for communication. The reason that diversity which increases productivity cannot work for populations of individuals who do not speak the same language is the simple lack of ability to communicate. The benefits of diversity in problem solving tasks would not be present in a group in which they were unable to speak and understand eachother. However, if these people were solving a math problem, or a problem in some more international set of symbols, one might assume that the language issue would dissapear.

This takes us to our next issue, however; that of intellectual diversity. Let's say that the group of individuals is in fact solving a mathamatical problem, but the type of diversity present at the meeting is that of intellectual diversity, that is some display a very high level of mathamatical understanding and ability and others are not able to understand even simple mathamatical concepts. This is not to say that those who cannot understand mathamatical concepts are "stupid" but simply that in this particular subject they are not proficient. Clearly in this type of setting the group would not progress because those who were able to understand the problem would not gain any benefit from those who did not. I would argue that the same applies to a college setting. Because the object of this type of academic grouping is to communicate ideas (both from professor to student and among students) and to learn, those who were not able to communicate at this intellectual level would not serve to benefit from or give benefits to the community as a whole. For diversity to increase productivity, those in the group must be able to communicate not only with the same language (math, speach or otherwise) but also must be able to communicate on the same level. When the group is within the limits of ability to communicate, I see no reason why the equation suggested by Page would not ring true in almost any setting. 

Wow, everyone has had quite a few interesting things to say about the idea of diversity. I wanted to think a bit about what Emily said, because I wonder just what the difference is between doing a procedure before birth to end cystic fibrosis and one to end deafness. She mentioned that the important distinction was that CF causes a shortened lifespan while deafness does not. Now I admit freely that I have not done any research, but Im pretty sure that advances in medical treatment have increased the average lifespan for someone with CF to about 40 years. I do not know if the lifespan for someone who is deaf is shorter or not, but I wonder if there is any type of increase in accidents caused by deafness. We rely so much on our hearing, think about car horns or even a shouted "STOP!" from a parent.

What is the difference, then, (or is there even a difference) between doing a procedure to change the genes of a fetus, doing a procedure to correct hearing in utero, and putting in a cochlear implant the day a child is born? I am still unclear as to why you can do a procedure to allow a child to hear, but only to them--you cannot affect their genetics to prevent that child's children from having to undergo the same type of procedure.

I was also interested by the comment about "being the diversity" in a situation. I was wondering exactly what that meant, and whether you had to be the apparent diversity (such as in race) to "qualify". Often as a Jew I feel like "the diversity" but in other situations I am "diverse" because I am from the midwest, or because I am straight, or because I went to public school or for such a wide variety of reasons. I wonder if anyone is ever NOT "the diversity" in a situation for some reason.

Also (though this relates more to last week and is also really cool) I wanted to share this link http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3341739.ece

It is about blind children learning how to use echolocation to "see" the world around us....says a lot about disability/ability!

To me, talking about diversity is such an interesting topic because, as was made apparent in last class' discussion, there are many ways to define it. It can be seen in a biological, social or even anatomical sense. Like Rebeccca W., I was also very interested in the conversation about how our bodies contain nothing but diversity and seem to function perfectly well (most of the time..). I think it's important to note the obvious differences between physical diversity and mental diversity, as Liz has above. I think our ideas of diversity, be it through race, religion, hair color, cell size, or anything, are examples of physical diversity. What is key in this idea of productivity is mental diversity. It interests me that we struggle with separating the two, and assume that someone who is physically diverse might also be mentally diverse (addressed in Delton's article).

On another topic, having recently visited the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, it is difficult for me to not equate much of our discussion on eugenics and "designing" a child to my experience there. Many of the Holocaust victims were mentally challenged, and people across Europe were convinced that they were doing these people (children and adults) a favor by killing them because of their inability to care for themselves or their lower intelligence. I would say that even the idea of selecting for dwarfism in a child is going over the line of appropriateness when it comes to gene alteration in an unborn child. For some reason (and maybe someone else can comment on this), I find it more acceptable, socially and morally, to offer a child a cochlear implant rather than adjust the child before its birth. But, if genetics research can help to prevent a child from being born with a fatal illness, like cystic fibrosis or some other disease where the patient often doesn't live to adulthood, that seems like a worthwhile intervention. Dwarfism and deafness will most likley not cut the child's life any shorter than a child born with hearing or without dwarfism, and it seems like that is the line that is getting blurrier due to what we as humans "want" in our children. We are forgetting that the ultimate goal is survival, and instead we run the risk of exploiting our scientific advances to make sure we have a brown eyed daughter with long straight hair.

One last point I would like to make is that we must respect both physical and mental diversity in the workplace and in our social lives. Regardless of facts and figures and algorithms, our race will not survive if we can't cooperate and acknowledge our differences. An interesting example that counterpoints the "higher race" argument that was brought up in class was the example of the bird species whose genes were too similar for effective reproduction, leading to their extinction. It's important to keep both of these stories in mind, and that we shouldn't strive for complete diversity or complete homogeneity, but to keep a safe middle ground where mental and physical diversity can thrive.

Since diversity and telescoping levels of complexity are two of many characterizations of biological systems, is it really surprising that struggle with wrapping our minds around all that diversity entails? Some buzzwords that better helped me understand what we mean when we talk about diversity included integration, communication, efficiency, conflict, and value of difference. One troublesome part of talking about diversity seems to be that these words mean very different things when talking about local diversity (a group of cells, an individual organism) and global diversity (culture, society, civilization).

It bothered me that our conversation about how genetics relates to diversity ended so abruptly. I interested me that the class spent a great deal of time continuing to debate whether or not it was alright to get rid of various traits in a population. This outcome would lead to one similar to the NASA conundrum with one homogenous group and one heterogeneous group, one less diverse group and one more diverse group. Clearly, the Dreifus article suggests that the heterogeneous, more diverse (perhaps to a fault, as some would have it?) is more desirable because more things are creative in that circumstance. To me, the class’ ambivalence suggests that many of us were not convinced by the Dreifus article’s argument that higher diversity equals higher productivity and that outcome is always desirable.

This problem, however, readily leads to a train of though that I troubled me. I noticed that many people spent lots of time saying “What if…” and then listing some instance of intentional genetic engineering to create a different, perhaps more resistant, perhaps “better adapted” group of humans. Altering the genetic makeup of a germ cell line is defined as eugenics, no matter whether the intentionality behind it is paternalistic, empathetic, or malicious. This practice has been used in American Appalachia in the 1920s, in Europe during the Holocaust and the Bosnian war, and in Darfur, Sudan, just to name a few. These ponderings are not at all thought experiments. These experiments, a practice of systematic alteration of inherited characteristics, have happened repeatedly throughout the course of time.

I would imagine that we would all have very strong reactions to these named instances, and therefore I can’t help wonder about the seemingly ambivalent nature of the discussion in the classroom. In fact, I repeatedly heard people affirming lines of reasoning that were used to justify these atrocities. Rather than place a blanket judgment that conversations that lead to disturbing conclusions are just wrong, I’m interested in what about our brains enables us to compartmentalize two very similar topics. I’m by no means suggesting that talking about these topics is the same as acting on these topics, but where do you draw the line? Would the people who agreed that getting rid of various kinds of genetic diversity ever actually act on their conclusions? More than anything, this conversation seems to be an interesting study in how humans think. What enables some humans to become passionately, violently moved by hearing accounts of civil rights abuses, but also able to discuss them so emotionlessly, so casually in a classroom? Is it the label of “hard science” or “biology” or “neurology”? Is it the distance? Is it some structural characteristic of to brains? Has this characteristic been named or studied before and I’m just not aware of it?

To switch topics, I’d like to repeat a short anecdote that I alluded to in class. I know that any research on memory suggests that I’m certainly manipulating this memory as I contextualize it and recall it, but I think it still applies to this discussion. Last semester, I participated in a Praxis course called The Sociology of AIDS. I interned at a local underfunded, understaffed AIDS organization in Center City, and most of my colleagues were people who became addicted to heroin at a very young age. None of them went to college, few of them can currently support themselves, and most are living in transient housing. I characterize them by these striking differences instead of their many virtues to illustrate that their perspective has been affected by these experiences, and it isn’t a perspective I hear on this campus at all. As my friends can attest, that course was the most provocative, emotionally draining, difficult, frustrating, and also the most productive, creative, and innovative semester I’ve had at college yet. I share this simply to suggest that there can be some reconciliation between Dreifus’ and Jones’ articles. Yes, conversations between diverse participants can be extraordinarily hard, and bring up lots of uncomfortable feelings (Jones) but they can ultimately lead to a great deal of creativity and productivity (Dreifus).

To switch to a more sweeping assessment of our conversation on diversity, at the root of this all, there’s still this intent focus on efficiency that bothers me. As I think the articles made clear, diversity is not conducive to efficiency. Conversations about diversity can be messy, upsetting, roundabout, repetitious affairs with no concrete outcome except a greater understanding of where another is coming from and how that history affects his or her perception of reality. The idea of efficiency isn’t limited to more traditional takes on diversity, like discussions, forums, and symposia that focus on diversity of race, religion, and class. The example of eugenics is also very much an example of increasing efficiency. If embryos were screened to prevent, say, Schizophrenia, excepting an empathetic, paternalistic motivation, much of the impetus is in the interest of efficiency. The lines of reasoning might be these: that eliminating this brain type would waste fewer resources on ineffective treatments, that it would summarily increase the number of productive people, and conversely reduce the percentage of counterproductive people. I see this idea of efficiency as central to a discussion of diversity since right now, I think that American society tends to stress the importance of both, even though they are often at extreme odds. Why do these two values conflict? Must they? Is this conflict something that emerges from individual brains (personality), or something that emerges from many of them (capitalism)? How does our other discussion about disability relate to new ideas of neurodiversity?