What are the accomplishments of black astronomers and physicists? Why does diversity remain so low in higher education, especially physics? What can we do to prevent bias and discrimination? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION (AUTO-GENERATED)
This is definitely going to be a different kind of episode. Almost all the episodes I do aren't tied to a specific time or place. Either I'm describing the development of some new cool idea in physics or astronomy or describing something, you know, suitably awesome out there in the cosmos. And most likely, when you listen to this episode, it will be far removed in both time and space from the events that sparked me to create it. Part of that is the production schedule of the show.
For various and unimportant reasons, episodes usually get released about two months after I record them. So I suspect that when this episode comes out, the national and global attention on this topic will fade. The great media eye of Sauron will be pointed somewhere else, but but that doesn't make the issue and the problems go away or make the responses any less vital. And what I'm talking about, what I'm going to talk about in this episode is to a large degree an American problem. It is a fracture in American society due to our history, and this is a very international podcast, and it may not be particularly relevant to you.
And I'm sure most of you had heard about the events that happened over here, and you might be wondering how this podcast is in any way of interest to you. And I don't wanna paint, with too broad of a brush, but the issues that Americans are facing in 2020, while unique to this country and this time and this history, represent issues that societies of all forms have faced throughout the, you know, entirety of human civilization. I'm talking about racism, bias, discrimination, hate. If you've been living under a rock since the beginning of 2020, first of all, I don't blame you. That isn't the worst of ideas.
But to fill you in and give some context to this episode, recently, many cities and communities, in in fact, almost every major city in The United States, has erupted in a wave of protests. It's probably not a coincidence that these protests came after months of lockdowns in the face of the COVID nineteen pandemic, and especially its disproportionate effect, the disproportionate effect of the COVID nineteen pandemic on black and minority communities. For example, black Americans are more likely to get the virus. They are less likely to survive, more likely to have their livelihoods disrupted. It is disproportionate.
Amid all the COVID nineteen stuff and the conversations we were having and the hard decisions we were having to make as communities, a string of events occurred which showed, police officers, acting recklessly in regards to black people and resulting in tragic and senseless and, frankly, unnecessary loss of life. People got angry, very angry, hence protests. The protest focused on black lives matter, pointing out disadvantages, disenfranchisement, bias, discrimination that that black and minority populations face, not just when it came to treatment from police, although that was definitely a focal point of these protests, but in all aspects of life. Now, why does this episode exist? On all social media and in the work I do, I try to stay politically neutral.
More than neutral, just silent. I don't think in any episode I've ever done, and we are on episode number 135, you have no idea what my political views are or my religious views or just basically personal views except for the fact that I have an particular fondness for cheese. Oh, that's intentional. You watch my shows or listen to my podcast or buy my book, which is available now. You get awesome spacey stuff.
That's why you come. And that's what I I love talking about. And so as usual, as the protests erupted, I stayed silent. I kept quiet on social media. I didn't mention it on any of my shows.
Some of my audience, some of you are black Americans, and some of you started reaching out to me. Did I not care about black people? Did I not have a voice? Was the fact that I was silent about this issue really tacit approval of police brutality, of discrimination? Did I not acknowledge or agree that it was a grievous issue about the the discrimination that black Americans face and other minorities in America face?
Those were powerful questions. So I decided to speak about it, but I didn't know what to say. So I asked you. I asked the people, you guys who reached out to me, and I talked with a lot of other people. The entire spectrum of what black Americans face, the nature of police brutality, the relationship between, and amongst societies, you know, cultural discrimination, implicit bias, all those things are very real issues.
I don't feel confident competently speaking on them except to say I don't like it, but I felt like I could say more about education. I can talk more about science. You know, the the stuff I talk about. And here I am doing an episode on the accomplishments of black physicists and astronomers, and it sounds easy. Right?
Let's do an episode highlighting the accomplishments of black astronomers and physicists. One problem there aren't a lot. And I'll talk more about why that's a problem at the end of this episode. But first, I do wanna talk about some famous black astronomers and physicists and highlight them. But how do I make a list?
How do I make a list? Like, I can't talk about all of them because, one, there isn't, like, publicly available information about all of them. And it would be a a relatively long list, much longer than a typical episode. But how do I pick? I wanna pick the most notable ones, the ones with the greatest achievements.
You know, two ends of the spectrum. I could talk about everybody, which seems a bit much, and I'll inevitably miss someone, or I could switch, go all the way to the other side and just talk about Nobel Prize winners, which would mean this episode will be over right now because there are no black winners of any signs Nobel Prizes. And as an aside considering that there only have been three women winners of physics Nobels, that that definitely means we need to have a hard look at the Nobels, but that's a different discussion. And so Wikipedia to the rescue, a page listing African American scientists and inventors. Is it perfect far from it?
Is it enough to get started? Sure. I'll start with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Neil deGrasse Tyson is not just the most famous black astronomer or physicist. He is almost certainly the most famous scientist in the world right now.
More people know about him than any other scientist. That is a massive achievement. Forging a career in public outreach and communication, writing a bajillion books, hosting TV shows, writing columns, doing public appearances, hosting his own shows. Like, that that's a big deal. He he has brought science and astronomy to millions of people worldwide.
He has been a role model to millions of kids worldwide. Yeah. Like, big deal. Congratulations. Much fewer people know about Edward Boucher, the first African American to get any PhD, and of course, it wasn't physics because that's the best PhD.
He got it from Yale in 1876. 1876. Suffice it to say, this was no small feat. I can't imagine the berries. Like, 1876, that's a generation removed from outright slavery.
That's a generation removed from the civil war. And Edward Boucher is fighting that and managing to get a PhD in physics. He went on to have a very difficult career. Even though he had a PhD in physics, he couldn't get university jobs because, you know, racism and discrimination and being a generation removed from outright slavery. But he did have a career.
He spent a lot of time teaching. There's also Harvey Banks, the first African American PhD in astronomy. He got that in 1961, and he did remain. He had a a very distinguished career as a university professor. Let's look at that time timeline.
The first physics PhD was 1876. The first astronomy PhD, African American, was 1961, almost a hundred years later. That seems a little bit odd, don't you think? There's Willie Hobbs, the first African American woman to get a PhD in physics. She got that in 1972 and focused on applied physics and chemistry.
Cool stuff, but not the stuff I usually talk about in this show. There's Barbara Williams, the first African American woman PhD in astronomy that didn't happen until 1981. She focused on radio observations of compact groups of galaxies. And there is the Reeva Williams, the first PhD in astrophysics in 1991, the first person to work out to make the Penrose mechanism mechanism, if you haven't heard of it, is super cool. You have a spinning black hole.
You can extract energy from that black hole, from the spin of that black hole. Roger Penrose was the first one to propose this, like, way back in, like, the '19 whatevers. But it was Riva Williams who actually worked through the math to to describe how you would do this in practice. Like, if you encounter a black hole and it's spinning, and you're like, wow, I would like to tap some of its rotational energy to power my Frappuccino machine, you wouldn't look to Roger Penrose's work because he just, like, proved that it's possible. You would look to Reva Williams' work because she's the one who actually showed how to do it.
So she those would be the papers you would read. Of course, I need to talk about Katherine Johnson. She was born in West Virginia in 1918. Good luck having a decent no no offense to West Virginia, but we're talking about 1918. We're talking about growing up between the World Wars.
We're talking about growing up in the Great Depression in West Virginia. Like, just good luck having a successful career in anything from that time in that place. West Virginia is a lovely, lovely state. I've been there many times. But 1918 was a different time.
Incredibly gifted mathematician. She was that was recognizable from a very early age, and she had wonderful parents that supported her and sacrificed a lot, ended up taking a job at NASA, and was one of the few key people that made the Apollo missions possible. As you might imagine, spaceflight involves a fair bit of mathematics, you know, trajectories, launch windows, return paths. But if you haven't heard of Katherine Johnson and, you know, the whole hidden figure thing, then we need to talk. Besides some first in African American black history in the sciences, there are some people that you may not have heard heard of.
Gibbor Bosry basically discovered brown dwarfs. Yeah. Brown dwarfs. You know that weird thing that sits between a planet. It's too big to be a planet, but too small to be a star.
An entirely new class of astronomical object. Bosary was the one to find it. There's Arthur Walker Junior. He served on that presidential commission when the Challenger shuttle exploded in 1986. Richard Feynman was on the committee too, and everyone remembers Richard Feynman and the whole O ring thing.
The the ultimate fatal flaw of the Challenger was that O ring, a little sealed rubber ring. It was too cold, and that ring became brittle and couldn't hold on, and it sprung a leak, and the whole thing blew up. Richard Feynman had that famous demonstration where he dropped that O ring in a glass of ice water, was able to show how brittle it got. Yeah. Arthur Walker junior was on that committee too and did a lot of the work in the investigation.
And there's George Carruthers who invented the far ultraviolet camera and spectrograph, which ended up on Apollo sixteen mission to the moon, was placed on the moon, pointed at the earth, and gave us some of the earliest info on how widespread our pollution was. So the whole, like, pollution movement, environmental movement that was fueled by information, like, oh, now we know, like, how bad we're making the planet because we can observe it from afar, and ultraviolet light can tell us a lot of things about pollutants in the atmosphere and distribution of pollutants. And that's the work of George Caruthers. Without his work, we wouldn't have figured that out. Who knows what trajectory the environmental movement may have taken?
I have to give my own teachers and mentors a shout out. Professors at the University of Illinois where I got my PhD, Nadia Mason and Philip Phillips, both amazing people, taught me a lot. And that's the end of the list. What? Yes.
There are a couple of people you might potentially argue could be added. I'm I'm I'm sure there's like, I missed a a couple names that you could say, well, what about this? Were they oh, okay. I'll give you that. But either way, the list would be ending at about here, and that's a problem.
Here's some statistics. In 02/2006 and, you know, these statistics are from all over the place because different surveys have been done at different times. So, you're gonna hear a range of dates all over the place, but it'll paint the the picture that I wanted to paint. In 02/2006, there were a total of 45,596 PhDs earned across all disciplines in The United States. Of those 45,596, one thousand six hundred 50 nine went to African Americans.
In 02/2011, which is the year I earned my PhD, there were a total of 826 physics PhDs awarded in The United States. So myself and 825 other people got physics PhDs in The United States that year. Of those 826, 17 went to African Americans. From 1972 to 02/2012, that's forty years, nineteen seventy two to 02/2012, '40 years, there were total of 28,859 physics PhDs awarded. Of those, over forty years, nearly 29,000 physics PhDs awarded.
Of those, 354 went to black men, 66 went to black women. In 02/2002, there were 3,302 physics PhDs working in US National labs overall. Of those 3,302, 16 were black, and it's not changing much. From 1977 to 1982, that five year period, there were total of 41 black PhDs. In a five year period 02/2001 to 02/2006, there were 64.
That's not much of a change. In 02/2015, blacks made up about 15% of The US population age twenty to twenty four, you know, college age. 15% of that population between the age 20 and 24, but less than 3% of physics bachelor degrees and less than 2% of physics PhDs. 15% of college age human beings in The United States are black, but only 3% of college attendees in physics programs are black. On average, from 2013 to 2017, there's, 220 bachelor's of physics awarded to black men and women in The United States.
There's, like, a couple hundred bachelor's produced every year and then a few PhDs every year. And while the absolute numbers of bachelor's degrees going to black men and women is going up, you know, in 1997 is a 58, in 02/2017 is 263, The percentage is dropping. So, yes, more black men and women are going to college getting bachelor's of physics, but the percentage of the population of the college student population getting bachelor's degrees is going down. It went down from four percent to three percent. What's causing this?
Yeah. It's not lack of ability. Yes. It's hard to get a physics bachelor's degree. Yes.
It's hard to get a physics bachelor's degree. Yes. It's hard to get a physics PhD. Yes. It requires a lot of intelligence and critical thinking skills and tenacity and perseverance and grit.
I'm speaking for myself. Not trying to brag about myself. It's hard. It's hard to get a physics PhD. Yeah.
Black men and women are perfectly capable of getting a PhD in physics. I have met many intelligent black men and women that would have no trouble at all getting a physics PhD if they wanted one. It is not a lack of ability. What is causing it? A lot of things as usual.
One is pipeline issues. A graduate program at a major university could bring on, could enroll every single black applicant that they could find, and it still wouldn't be enough because black men and women simply aren't applying. A bachelor's were an undergraduate program could enroll every single black candidate, and it still wouldn't be enough because black boys and girls, teenagers are not applying for physics bachelor programs at universities. They're not showing up at you know there's a problem, and it starts at a very young age. Black boys and girls aren't getting the education they need.
They're not getting the high schooling they need. They're not getting the connections they need. They're not getting the prep they need to be competitive at a bachelor do physics degree level. If they are able to get a bachelor's in physics, they're not given the opportunities they need to be competitive for a graduate program? Because, yes, they can get a, a bachelor's degree, but if it's not at a university.
Look up your physics department at your local university. Read the professor's bios. First off first off, look at their pictures. They all look the same. There's this perceived image of scientists as, you know, old white men.
Yeah. Go to your department's page, and what do you see is you see a bunch of old white men filling the halls of the astronomy and physics departments. But then look at their bios. Look at where they got where they did their postdocs. Look at where they got their PhDs.
Look at where they got their bachelor's. You're gonna list about one, maybe two dozen schools. That's it. If you don't get a bachelor's degree from one of those schools, you have a much harder chance of getting into a graduate program. If you don't get a PhD from a relatively narrow list of one or two dozen schools, you will simply not be on track for a postdoc and eventually a faculty position.
That is a much larger problem than just than the issues facing black men and women, but it certainly doesn't help. Because, yeah, if you you you may get a bachelor's in physics, but if it's from the wrong university or simply not the right university, then you don't have a shot. You're not competitive for a physics PhD graduate program. It's just the way it is, which is disgusting. And when you look at that website of that physics or astronomy department, if you're a young black kid, you see nobody that looks like you.
You don't have any role models. You don't have anyone to email to say, what were your experiences like? I would like to do the same thing as you. There's there's not that person. If you're growing up in a culture where you don't see people that look like you and talk like you and act like you and think like you in positions of intellectual authority, you automatically assume that that's not for you, and then so does everyone else.
It is this is just this, this is where implicit biases. Right? Where you show up, maybe you have convinced yourself, like, I'm here. You know what? I'm gonna do it, but everyone around you says, well, you don't look like us.
Black students do face outright discrimination and bias. I serve on I have served and continue to serve on various committees, you know, fellowships, graduate admission, things like that. I remember reading distinctly, relatively recently, actually, two letters. We had two candidates for, a fellowship, for a graduate program fellowship. We had a bunch of candidates, of course, but, there was two candidates that had the same adviser.
And so this adviser, this professor, who is a very well known astronomy professor from a very well known university, had to write two letters for two of his students. And you know what? That's a totally normal thing. That's a real thing that happens all the time. That's no big deal.
And and I should say both of these students had reached, like, the level of final selection. Both of these students were absolutely stellar. Both of these students were brilliant. Like, the whole application packet was stunning. Like, it was just like, I wanna say, like, both of these students were highly competitive for this very prestigious fellowship.
One of the students got a long and and you know exactly where I'm going with this. One of the students got a very long and detailed, glowing, like, an exemplar letter of recommendation. It was just beautiful. It was a work of art talking about details, leadership, all sorts of, like and and examples and anecdotes and, like, really painted a picture. Another student, the other student who was equally as exciting as a candidate got, like, a four paragraph form letter.
I was perplexed. Actually, a colleague of mine on the committee pointed out, like, well, look. This this student is black. Just as accomplished, just as capable, got the form letter. Yes.
That is just one example. Yes. One example does not paint a picture of systemic racism. Yes. There could have been other explanations for why one student got a form letter and one student got the best possible letter of recommendation?
For the record, both students were offered the award. That is one example that I saw that I personally encountered. How many examples have not crossed my desk because, you know, students didn't even apply for this fellowship? Who couldn't even get someone to write a letter for them? Who just quit?
Who didn't even try looked down the path of getting a physics bachelor's or PhD, said there's no way I can do that, didn't have the right connections. You know, if you didn't go to the right undergrad university, you won't get into a good graduate school. If you don't go to a good graduate school, you won't be, eligible or competitive for postdocs and then faculty positions. One university investigated just one university found that black professors were 33 times more likely to be denied tenure. There's a lot of research when we especially, like, I talk about letters of recommendation a lot because that is like your currency in the academic world.
A letter of recommendation is what opens doors for you, and a strong letter of a good, stellar letter of recommendation will get you into positions. There's been a lot of study on the differences between letters of recommendation between men and women. And, you know, like like, letters for women tend to use more caveats, tend to use more negative language, tend to talk about more emotional things rather than practical results, and this hurts women. There's a lot of data to support that. There's, like, no data on the differences between letters for white and black candidates because there aren't enough black candidates to, like, draw conclusions.
What I'm worried about is are we missing the next Einstein? We've talked on this show a lot about mysteries of the earth, things that we don't understand. It takes work and genius and insight, which is found in spades in the black community. Why aren't any of them coming over to solve some of these problems in physics and astronomy? Is there some kid out there who has in their head the right combination of knowledge and insights and training that they could crack dark energy, that they could figure out what dark matter is made of, that they could figure out how to combine gravity with quantum mechanics?
And if there is, there might be, but they're not coming over to physics and astronomy. They're not signing up. They're not showing up. They're not taking the courses. They're not getting the the degree.
They're not pushing in the field. Why? Because they have a lot harder time doing it, and so their energies are bent I don't blame them. I don't blame them. Physics is already hard enough, and then you add a bunch of, like, social layers and discrimination, and, by like, come on.
Are we missing the next Einstein? How many Einsteins have we already passed over? And it's strange. It's so strange to me that the academic community is not acting on this matter. No.
I don't know what the solution is. The academic community, the scientific community, the physics community assumes that we live in a meritocracy that, yes, simply all you do is put in the hard work. You write a bunch of papers. You do excellent work. That means you get a good letter of recommendation because that's what we write our letters of recommendation about that gets you in good programs.
And so so the the the best rise to the top, and those are the ones that get end up in long term faculty positions. Okay. That is not true. I cannot make this personal. It's not about me.
I can tell you stories about how that is absolutely not true. The institution of science is not run as a meritocracy, but it's interesting to, okay, I will make this personal. I was told all through grad school and through all through my early post, like, just keep writing papers, Paul. Just keep writing papers, and you will end up on a tenure position. That's what it's turns out, no.
Turns out it's networking and who you know and what topic you're working on and what kind of letter who is writing your letter of recommendation, where that letter is coming from. The amount of papers, the quality of your work, the number of citations plays a role, but is by far not the most important role. And it's strange that a community of And it's strange that a community of people who have dedicated their lives to a skeptical pursuit of knowledge aren't skeptical about their very own structure of jobs and careers in deciding who should get positions and money and awards. A lot of scientists, physicists, astronomers just assume, like, oh, it's just a meritocracy. If if, like, a smart black kid shows up, like, of course, we'll hire them, and largely that's kinda true, but, like, the smart black kids aren't showing up.
And then when they do get there, they face a lot of issues that we're blind to, we being the people in academia already. How do we solve this? I don't know. I don't have answers for something that big. It's a complex issue.
It takes serious effort to untangle. I hope some of this podcast helps. So at least gives you some awareness that there is a problem here in physics, in astronomy, in STEM, in academia altogether, we are losing opportunities to have geniuses where we want geniuses to be unlocking the mysteries of the universe. We're we're shooting ourselves in the foot. There's no need for a Patreon bomb or surprise this time.
Instead, I'd like you to donate to the, National Society of Black Physicists. That's nsbp.org. And I'd like to thank all of you, especially Irvin on Facebook, for the questions that led to today's episode. And I will see you next time for more complete knowledge of time and space.