Today, like every Monday, I cleaned house and did laundry, etc. while listening to my various favorite podcasts. I listen to a lot of technology podcasts, science podcasts, and of course skeptical podcasts. One of my favorite podcasts, in the skeptical genre is Skeptically Speaking, which is also a weekly radio show that is run from CJSR in Edmonton. As a quick side note, I didn't find out about this podcast until we had moved away from Edmonton.
Today I listened to part two of Nobel Prize Women in Science, which was an interview with author Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, who wrote a book about (duh) Nobel Prize Women in Science. The interview(s) discuss a long history of many women in science who have both won the Nobel Prize as well as those who have not been as lucky, despite contributing immensely to science as we now know it. As was true with part 1 of this interview, I was absolutely riveted by this interview, and my question is: Why?
As far as I know, I'm not a woman. Although my misogynistic friends may disagree with this statement. So I don't share any of the inequities that many of these women obviously faced throughout their professional careers, if not their entire lives.
I am a huge fan of science in general (in fact, I don't think I've read a fiction book in over three years) so maybe my fascination on this topic had more to do with learning about a large body of work that I never knew about; at least not as it applied to women. Along these lines, I have also been developing an appreciation of history as well, so maybe this also explains why I am interested in this topic.
The final reason I can think of as to why I am so interested in this book, is the fact that I found the author, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, had an unrestrained passion about this topic. She sounded like she was absolutely aglow with her enthusiasm about these women! She made the subject matter intesively interesting to me. In the interview, she would discuss their pasts, their struggles, their personalities, etc. It was really, really interesting.
For instance, for those of you who are science minded, did you know that Watson and Crick, the scientists who supposedly discovered the double-helix shape of DNA, actually stole it from Rosalind Franklin? They were pretty unabashed about it too. In interviews after the fact, they were basically unapologetic about the whole thing.
For whatever reason that I'm interested in this, I have found my next book to read! Luckily there are two copies available at the library too!
As far as I know, I'm not a woman. Although my misogynistic friends may disagree with this statement. So I don't share any of the inequities that many of these women obviously faced throughout their professional careers, if not their entire lives.
I am a huge fan of science in general (in fact, I don't think I've read a fiction book in over three years) so maybe my fascination on this topic had more to do with learning about a large body of work that I never knew about; at least not as it applied to women. Along these lines, I have also been developing an appreciation of history as well, so maybe this also explains why I am interested in this topic.
The final reason I can think of as to why I am so interested in this book, is the fact that I found the author, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, had an unrestrained passion about this topic. She sounded like she was absolutely aglow with her enthusiasm about these women! She made the subject matter intesively interesting to me. In the interview, she would discuss their pasts, their struggles, their personalities, etc. It was really, really interesting.
For instance, for those of you who are science minded, did you know that Watson and Crick, the scientists who supposedly discovered the double-helix shape of DNA, actually stole it from Rosalind Franklin? They were pretty unabashed about it too. In interviews after the fact, they were basically unapologetic about the whole thing.
For whatever reason that I'm interested in this, I have found my next book to read! Luckily there are two copies available at the library too!
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