Speaker
Description
Ability for science has, can, and always will come from absolutely anywhere. For every form of discrimination - religious, class, gender, ethnic, national, economic, disability, sexuality - one can name scientific geniuses who's ability, insight and contribution could easily have been lost to humanity because of any one of those discriminations. But it goes much deeper than just the potential loss of talent. Decision-making, particularly in emergency and difficult situations, is massively improved if diversity of experience, background and neural pathways are brought to bear and inclusivity is essential to allow that diversity to be able to speak up and contribute. This lesson was learned by NASA, in particular, and missions, and indeed the lives of astronauts, were saved as a result. In the media, the concept of "political correctness gone mad" has evolved into the more aggressive concept of "woke" but starts from the thought that diversity and inclusion are actually unnecessary and driven only by a desire to be nice. In reality, they are indeed the right and humane policies to adopt, but they are far, far more than that, being essential to good decision-making and the harnessing of all human talent. Science has always found itself in conflict with dogma, and progresses by arriving at consensus, and a consensus is only powerful when it is a diverse and inclusive one. We need to be aware of the process by which science arrives at consensus and defend it, for it is under attack by those outside science with vested interests in undermining a scientific consensus.
