The gender gap in science: How long until women are equally represented?

Women comprise a minority of the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) workforce. Quantifying the gender gap may identify fields that will not reach parity without intervention, reveal underappreciated biases, and inform benchmarks for gender balance among conference speakers, editors, and hiring committees. Using the PubMed and arXiv databases, we estimated the gender of 36 million authors from >100 countries publishing in >6000 journals, covering most STEMM disciplines over the last 15 years, and made a web app allowing easy access to the data (https://lukeholman.github.io/genderGap/). Despite recent progress, the gender gap appears likely to persist for generations, particularly in surgery, computer science, physics, and maths. The gap is especially large in authorship positions associated with seniority, and prestigious journals have fewer women authors. Additionally, we estimate that men are invited by journals to submit papers at approximately double the rate of women. Wealthy countries, notably Japan, Germany, and Switzerland, had fewer women authors than poorer ones. We conclude that the STEMM gender gap will not close without further reforms in education, mentoring, and academic publishing.

Vivisecting Major: a Victorian gentleman scientist defends animal experimentation, 1876-1885.

Through an investigation of the public, professional, and private life of the Darwinian disciple George John Romanes, this essay seeks a better understanding of the scientific motivations for defending the practice of vivisection at the height of the controversy in late Victorian Britain. Setting aside a historiography that has tended to focus on the arguments of antivivisectionists, it reconstructs the viewpoint of the scientific community through an examination of Romanes's work to help orchestrate the defense of animal experimentation. By embedding his life in three complicatedly overlapping networks-the world of print, interpersonal communications among an increasingly professionalized body of scientific men, and the intimacies of private life-the essay uses Romanes as a lens with which to focus the physiological apprehension of the antivivisection movement. It is a story of reputation, self-interest, and affection.

Seria a moralidade determinada pelo cérebro? Neurônios-espelhos, empatia e neuromoralidade / Does the brain have anything to do with morality? Mirror neurons, empathy and neuromorality

O objetivo do artigo é analisar o impacto do progresso das neurociências, em particular da descoberta dos neurônios-espelhos, sobre as teses referentes à moralidade. Analisamos as tentativas atuais de naturalizar a moralidade baseadas nessa descoberta, a partir da qual se reduzem os princípios éticos a propriedades biológicas da natureza humana. Investigamos como os estudos em psicologia sobre a função da empatia, da capacidade de se colocar na perspectiva do outro e da simulação corporificada ganharam nova credibilidade, poder explicativo e, sobretudo, relevância teórica por causa da descoberta dos sistemas de neurônios-espelhos. Como parte desse movimento, observamos novas tentativas nas pesquisas atuais em estabelecer conexões funcionais e possivelmente causais entre o cérebro e o pensamento moral. Consideramos, numa perspectiva crítica, essas tentativas e a busca renovada pela formulação de uma ética naturalizada.

This paper aims to consider the impact of progress in the neurosciences, in particular the discovery of mirror neurons, on the study of morality. It analyzes the current attempts at naturalizing moral principles based on this discovery, reducing human morality to basic biological properties. It explores how psychological studies on empathy, perspective taking and embodied simulation have gained new credibility, explanatory power, and overall theoretical "traction" because of the discovery of mirror neuron systems. As part of this movement, there are now renewed attempts by researchers at establishing functional links, possibly causal links, between brain and moral thought. These attempts and the renewed quest toward naturalizing ethics are critically considered.

Application of a sensemaking approach to ethics training in the physical sciences and engineering.

Integrity is a critical determinant of the effectiveness of research organizations in terms of producing high quality research and educating the new generation of scientists. A number of responsible conduct of research (RCR) training programs have been developed to address this growing organizational concern. However, in spite of a significant body of research in ethics training, it is still unknown which approach has the highest potential to enhance researchers' integrity. One of the approaches showing some promise in improving researchers' integrity has focused on the development of ethical decision-making skills. The current effort proposes a novel curriculum that focuses on broad metacognitive reasoning strategies researchers use when making sense of day-to-day social and professional practices that have ethical implications for the physical sciences and engineering. This sensemaking training has been implemented in a professional sample of scientists conducting research in electrical engineering, atmospheric and computer sciences at a large multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary, and multi-university research center. A pre-post design was used to assess training effectiveness using scenario-based ethical decision-making measures. The training resulted in enhanced ethical decision-making of researchers in relation to four ethical conduct areas, namely data management, study conduct, professional practices, and business practices. In addition, sensemaking training led to researchers' preference for decisions involving the application of the broad metacognitive reasoning strategies. Individual trainee and training characteristics were used to explain the study findings. Broad implications of the findings for ethics training development, implementation, and evaluation in the sciences are discussed.

Concepção de ciência e suas implicações para o ensino / Conception of science and its implication in teaching

A Ciência pode ser entendida como um conjunto de conhecimentos sistematizados dos fatos, princípios e métodos decorrentes de estudos, observações e experimentos (FERREIRA, 1993). Muitas são as concepções e as explicações para a Ciência, assim com as formas de se apropriar e de ensiná-las. O presente trabalho foi realizado através de uma revisão literária no âmbito das Ciências Naturais, a fim de propor aos educadores pontos de reflexão acerca do ensino de ciências que se têm atualmente. Ensinar Ciências requer um enfoque no processo ensino-aprendizagem como reconstrução do conhecimento; saber que as situações de aprendizagem não ocorrem ao acaso: elas são iniciadas quando se coloca o aluno diante de um problema, um projeto ou uma tarefa a ser realizada. Para tal, o professor de Ciências, mediador desse processo, deve desenvolver dispositivos e seqüências didáticas que mobilizam, estimulam e promovam a reconstrução de um determinado conhecimento. A competência deste está intimamente ligada à sua capacidade de oferecer estímulos e desafios, promover os ajustes e fazer as intervenções nos momentos adequados, assim como a realização de discussões e reflexões sobre os aspectos éticos e ambientais relacionados a essas dimensões da ciência e da tecnologia atual