We Need To Talk About Diversity in Science

How can we make science more diverse?

YouTube Channel Links:
Jaida Elcock TikTok: @jaidaelcock
Anna Gifty Twitter: @itsafronomics

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Created by: Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown

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Mitch

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[nsa]

As a woman and a minority in stem, I honestly don't care if I'm the only woman/minority in the room. What does bother me is bad behavior and bad management which drives women, non binaries, minorites and others away from stem. When we get criticized harshly and in a mean way, we internalize it and then think that we are the problem and quit. I feel like people who hurt students, especially women and minorities, don't get punished. And unfortunately no women in stem programs deal with this rather they all deal with non issues.

[jamiehay]

**Reads title and sees thumbnail**

*Me:* "Aight, imma head to this juicy comment section"

[MedlifeCrisis]

Hi all, I'm a non-white science youtuber, indeed one from the very institution that gave the world eugenics via Francis Galton (legacy's a legacy amirite). I appreciate the motivation behind this but it was an overly-simplistic take. I know it's daft criticising a youtube video of being brief as we all understand the medium, but I fear this could be written off as cherry-picking a bunch of studies, some of which are of dubious quality. Conflating tech company make up with the public's viewing habits is a bit of a leap. The stats you showed demonstrate that tech companies are *ethnically* actually leagues ahead of most Fortune 500 companies in terms of diversity. The fact black people are so poorly represented in tech companies in the US is predominantly due to systemic racism in America, with poverty and lack of access to decent education disproportionately affecting African Americans. The most important bar to entering science is lack of opportunity, ie coming from a poor background.

Recommend Jordan's channel as where you'll find a super smart Harvard post grad who is an expert on AI, not by highlighting one video she made about racism. Your closing statements were spot on, fully agree with those. Anyone keen to really learn about the interplay between science and racism, please read 'Superior' by Angela Saini, a really excellent book without any sermonising or proselytising, just a thorough analysis of the facts. Anyway, thanks for making an important video.

[KamemotoEimi]

I'm surprised that Khan academy didn't make the list of most subscribed science channels.

[bugatti]

Since when is Crazy Russian Hacker an Science Youtuber ? I mean 90% of his Videos are Unboxings or Product reviews... stopped watching him years ago.

[twiddle]

Can we also talk about how I'm legally required to say I'm "White" when filling out those dumb surveys even though I'm middle-eastern? And even having "middle-eastern" as an option is such a vague term and isn't a valuable descriptor.

[ericwebster]

The like dislike ratio of this video is very telling.

[ayeiyoaye]

These people clearly never studied from the Indian men of YouTube

[VexMage]

Dude, how is Physics Girl not in the top 20 😭. She's awesome! So is Doctor Becky 😭!

[jessicawilliams]

I'm a science communicator at a children's science museum in Northern Illinois and our community has a large proportion of black families. My museum recently worked with the local afterschool programs to provide a curriculum that included hands-on activities tied to real world biographies. We found that the students were drawn to the scientists and engineers and inventors who they could identify with. We always had stories that were diverse with different POC and different abilities. The students particularly enjoyed it when the stories talked about people who overcame difficulties or who struggled in school. They love to hear that you don't need to start from a place of privilege to accomplish the things you want to do.

[Sophie-kfqk]

I am from Queensland, in Australia, and for young girls interested in stem/steam we have a program that helps them get into their chosen stem fields of study. It allows 30 girls from across Queensland to go to stem camps and tour universities, as well as getting an edge on $AU40-60, 000 university scholarships and other high class events.

[BluesEternity]

I am extremely surprised that Nile red or Nile blue didn’t make the top 25 science YouTube channels😖

[ontjke]

Talking about diversity in science, mentioning only America, is like talking about the atmosphere sitting on the moon. Observing from Europe, it seems that you want to change the consequences, not the cause. Do you think that education begins with the university? Education begins with a family and a kindergarten, then school, and only then institute and work. Now you want people who are bullied in families to go into an area that is not so attractive on paper. And where to succeed you need to kill a lot of time, which these people may not have. I honestly don't understand how hiring people with a different skin color just because you have to is different from standard racism?

[roflchopter]

I don't watch many of those, but Slowmo Guys is an entertainment channel.

[munaq-jp]

What's with Slomo Guys, King of Random, and Crazy Russian Hacker being there? It's a terrible stretch to call any of them a science channel.

[Reelix]

"But we have to acknowledge that we all have biases that are unintentional"

Then remove the possibility of bias. Remove name / gender / race / nationality / etc from CV's - Do blind screenings - Use third-party vetting processes.

Saying "We're only hiring women since there aren't enough women in the industry" is discrimination within itself.

[olivermundell]

I think khan academy is such an amazing display of what diverse people can really do for science and just education in general.

[irradiatedbadger]

What about crash course, they have a diverse group of presenters.

[vandy]

I’m a Zimbabwean- Australian girl who wants to go into science 💞

[jayzepickle]

I am a girl going into senior year and I really wanna be an amazing research scientist, I aspire to expand the horizon of science of work on amazing discoveries. It wasn't until a few days ago that I realized how all the scientists I look up to are all boys. It never occurred to me how gender plays a role in the STEM field, I guess I just always sought a goal and it was very tunnel vision. And that's when I started to feel a tad confused because I wasn't sure if there was a road block in the science field for girls like me. But I still aspire to be an amazing scientist regardless, if anything it encourages me more.

Edit: Damn, perhaps I shouldn't have even said anything. I have absolutely no problem working with men, most of my friends are guys and yes we enjoy discussing science and math. I have no female friends interested in those topics. Yes I realize ideas matter and science is blind to gender, I'm not an idiot. However my issue comes with the idea of how many wonderful scientist women there are, yet I hear next to nothing about them. It feels like I only ever hear or see male ideas. Obviously ideas are ideas I couldn't care less what gender they are, however the implications of this indicate that perhaps the science community caters to men. That is slightly worrying as a woman because I hope I can have the same chances men can have to make an impact.