Sunday, June 16, 2019
By:
“Ciencia para qué y para quiénes?”
“Science for what and for whom?”
This question has become one of the central rallying cries of the Ciencia Digna movement. Started by the late biologist Andrés Carrasco, this is a movement centered on the health and wellbeing of all people; because this movement prioritizes community, it is called “pueblo-centric.”
I stumbled upon Ciencia Digna at the end of last week, as I was searching for Latinx scientists that I could create teaching guides on. Carrasco began planting the seeds of this movement when he listened to the mothers of the Cordoba province in Argentina as they spoke of and organized against the devastating effects herbicides have had on their communities. Driven by empathy, he sought out scientific proof of what the mothers already knew. He was the first to show that the use of glyphosate-based herbicides leads to birth defects in surrounding communities.
Carrasco’s willingness to doubt the herbicide industry’s claim that glyphosate was completely safe for heavy use in agricultural industries took courage. Shortly after he made the results of his study public—in a press release, far before any journal publication—he began receiving death threats and angry responses from his employer.
The way I see it, there were two conflicting forces pulling on Carrasco when he was conducting this research: the force of comfort, and the force of love. To choose comfort is to take what the world tells you at face value. For a scientist, to choose comfort is to never question what role your work plays in the violence of the world. To choose love, on the other hand, is to listen to those who have had violence enacted upon them; to choose love is to turn inward and see your own humanity.
Científicas Dignas are scientists that explore the natural world with intention and love. They enter their workplace with humanity in mind; they consider whose interests their science serves, and they shift their work when it harms the pueblo.
Scientists, who are you serving? Who do you want to serve? How can you leverage your expertise to improve everyone’s quality of life? Will you serve violent states and corporations, or will you serve your own humanity? Will you choose love?
Anna Perry