/sci/ - Science & Math

>>8831246
>>8831609
>underrepresented
I've always taken issue with this word in the context of jobs that aren't meant for representation. You go into politics, then sure, if you're going to be in your nation's congress, you represent your people, but if you're a scientist? I mean, it'd make their case if they pointed out exactly which people aren't allowed to participate in the sciences, but I've never seen any empirical evidence of people being left out specifically for their identities.

I mean, some people can't get into colleges because they either can't pay for it or can't grab enough scholarships. There's a conversation to be had there, but that's about economic class and the quality of grade school, not exactly a distinction between races or sexes until you look at scholarship criteria, which FAVOR those "underrepresented" people. Even so, people from different backgrounds will inevitably desire to go into different fields, and trying to get people from every single background into the same field just leads to more anger or outright shifts in career from those people who only did it for incentives that weren't their own.

Unless you're a lawyer, an advertiser, or a political leader, the only one you represent is yourself. If you think minorities can't accept the work of people who don't look like them, you're assuming that those minorities are bigots. It's condescending, especially to those who worked their asses off to get to where they are without the training wheels of identity politics. I'm a black Hispanic physicist, so you might see why I'm venting here. I don't care to represent people who look like me. I just want to work out better fluid mechanical models for the atmospheres of gas giants. If you want to do the same or if you don't, it doesn't matter what you look like. What matters is your ideas, and if they don't have to do with my field, then work somewhere else. It's not that you're not wanted here; what matters is if YOU want to be here.

How does gas giants die?