November 21, 2016 9:12 pm

Tuesday, Summer Ash and Emily Rice Answer Cosmic Queries about Women in Science

Tomorrow night, we premiere our first StarTalk All-Stars episode hosted by two All-Stars: astrophysicist Summer Ash and astronomer Emily Rice.

They’ve both been guests on StarTalk before, but tomorrow, they’re calling the shots. And the subject of their first episode is “Women in Science” – a subject about which they both have primary experience. They’ve even worked to reclaim the sexist hashtag, #WCW (aka, Women Crush Wednesday) which objectifies women, by recasting it as “Women Crushing It Wednesday”, and focusing on women scientists who are superlative at what they do.

Surprisingly, when a fan asked them about the major challenges they personally faced to get where they are today, both Emily and Summer said they didn’t really face any. Emily had plenty of fellow women students in college and grad school, and Summer had amazing female mentors. Even if they were hindered by unconscious bias, or discouraged by self-doubt, as they know happens to so many women who enter the “leaky pipeline” only to drop out somewhere on the path to becoming a professor, they persevered with the help of their support networks.

But they both agree that there is in fact sexism in science. Science reflects society as a whole, and, as Emily says, “Science is messy, and done by humans… but it can make it harder to convince a scientist that they’re being biased.” Although, unlike some of their fellow women scientists, both Summer and Emily say that they haven’t had to face it personally.

Which brings us to one of the major conclusions Summer, Emily and co-host Chuck Nice describe on the show: nobody gets anywhere without help.

That’s true in science as well, even though some of the women who were part of the teams that made the breakthroughs get lesser billing in history, like Rosalind Franklin, whose integral role in the discovery of the structure of DNA was largely unknown by the public, partially because she died at 37, five years before Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize.

The most aggressively feminist comment in the entire episode may come from co-host Chuck Nice, who can’t control his anger against people who say, “As a father of 2 girls, I believe…” As Chuck says, “You should not have respect for women and their equality based on the fact of who you have in your family who is a woman. Because I don’t know if you know this, but if you are here on this planet, you have a family member who is a woman.”

FYI, if you’re worried that this entire episode is just about gender and science, you needn’t be. Chuck also asks Emily and Summer Cosmic Queries about science, not social issues, like how to educate climate change deniers, what happens to the matter that falls into a black hole, and what would happen to us on Earth if the sun were to suddenly and instantly change into a black hole.

Please join us Tuesday at 7pm EST for Women in Science, with Summer Ash and Emily Rice – StarTalk All-Stars, right here on our website, or on iTunesPodcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher and TuneIn. And of course, subscribers can watch or listen commercial-free on All-Access.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Jeffrey Simons