Blowing open science

Posted by Tatiana

An update: I'm now in school full time plodding along, hopefully, towards a Master's Degree in Public Health. (First, I'm working on finishing up a BS.) Midwifery is still in my heart and in my future, but the confluence of the trials of learning and practicing midwifery with very young chilluns PLUS the opportunity for excellent funding to finish school has me eagerly accepting this chance. I see the research and policy making that a Public Health degree allows to be on excellent and friendly terms with the kind of direct-entry hands-off socially-conscious midwifery I plan on stepping into in a few years time.

All of this means that I am in a mountain of schoolwork and enjoying the grace of a little extra help with the kiddos this weekend to catch up. I LOVE statistics (which I think boads well for my research goals), and find I have a sharper and more critical eye for all of school than I ever had before (thanks, year of self-educating!) I'm a glutton for all of it. I can feel my toolbox filling with some wickedly useful skills to take on some of the nonsense ostensibly founded on science that we are all contending with every day.

Cheerio and wish me the best.

Edit: In retrospect, that's kind of an odd title I picked for this post. I guess I titled it "Blowing open science" because I just felt some walls of reverence crumble within myself that I hadn't even noticed before. Science is couched in this social world with all of its sneaky little unconscious ideals and motives, and I'm just a little less wooed with the illusion of it's supposed objectivity.

I know we try to deconstruct science in the blogosphere a lot, so that's not original. But I think that because we often use other science to disprove whatever science we're trying to deconstruct, it reinforces the notion that somewhere out there is that "real real" science, and if we just use it against that "not exactly real" science we'll come out on top. Spinning in the sand. And don't get me wrong, I love science and will continue to use it. Just with a little less mystical awe, is all.