You know, when I was a [very] young woman, I had a weirdly strong belief that things improve as time passes and people learn more of themselves and the universe around us. I grew up just after the era of women’s lib had shaken the world, and it seemed to me that equality for all human beings was just a matter of time.
When I had children, I naturally passed these values along. I’m very proud of the young woman my daughter has become [though, as the child of a writer, she gets pretty testy about being the subject of my work, so I don’t mention her a whole lot in this forum]. But right now she is working very hard to finish her degree, and has her eye on post-graduate work in a far-away land.
She wants to be an archeologist.
So when I saw a wonderful clip of scientists speaking about the importance of teaching the concept of evolution in schools, it put me in mind of my girl. I was so impressed with the varying definitions presented, and not until about half-way in did I begin to notice that all of experts speaking are women.
When I went back to the source, another blogging scientist named Maggie Koerth-Baker, I read that the video was a kind of reasoned response to this very, very sorry evidence that the young-version of me was wrong. Things do not always move forward. I’ll post it here, but will forgive you if you can’t make it all the way through…
And here’s the clip that inspired this post — an entirely different collection of young women who hold somewhat more reasoned views:
What do you think?
Any chance that evolution will select for …the survival of intelligence?
More soon…
~kc