Diversity in Science: Why It Is Essential for
Excellence
Science and technology are society's main engines of prosperity. Who gets to drive them?
Sep 16, 2014 |By Fred Guterl
Edel Rodriguez
More In This Article

State of the World's Science 2014
Collaboration has been a recurring theme in science and technology in recent years. The life of
the mind is increasingly transnational in nature. It roams centers of excellence from every
continent, linked by communications of great speed and breadth. Twice we have looked at
collaboration in our State of the World's Science reports, last year with a focus on innovation, the
year before on basic research. Here we address it again, from the standpoint of the individual.
The word “diversity” is shorthand for a vast effort to remake society to include everyone—not
just those in privileged positions—in politics, culture and the pursuit of happiness. This ambition
goes well beyond the scope of this report; we have stayed within the realm of science and its
activities. Because we prefer to look at evidence, we take the opportunity to focus on the
empirical grounding of diversity, which often gets lost in the larger conversation.
Diversity, it turns out, goes to the heart of how to do research and innovation effectively. In the
scientific literature, it is clear that diversity speaks directly to the quality and effectiveness of
teams. As Katherine W. Phillips tells us, starting on page 42, when we have to work with people
who are not like ourselves, we tend to prepare more thoroughly and work harder to marshal our
arguments, and we do better work as a result. Diversity is beneficial for teams precisely because
we react differently to people who are different from us. If the end goal is excellence, diversity is
an essential ingredient.
For diversity to be effective, the working environment must be right. For an individual, it takes
conscious effort to be on the watch for unconscious biases and to overcome them. For an
organization, it takes processes, procedures and an ethos of acceptance. Victoria Plaut points out,
beginning on page 52, that groups who abandon color-blind policies and embrace the differences
among their members in ways that do not stereotype or pigeonhole tend to be successful in
taking advantage of what diversity has to offer.
We do not treat diversity exclusively as a utilitarian matter in this special section, of course.
Science imposes the discipline of having to find the best ideas among varied teams of people,
which gives scientists and engineers the opportunity to be pioneers in cultural change. So we
have sprinkled this package with essays from some extraordinary people who are embracing that
challenge.
We would like to have included a Diversity Index—a measure of how nations fare when it comes
to inclusiveness in the science and technology workforce. At the moment that is too tall an order,
however. In a welcome development from two of the world's most visible technology companies,
Google and Apple recently released data on the diversity, or lack of it, of their respective
workforces. It is a drop in the information bucket, however. Data overall are scarce, for several
reasons.
Racial and ethnic identity, for one, are hard to define consistently. A United Nations census
found that two thirds of nations categorized their populations along these lines but used a
kaleidoscope of terms— race, ethnic origin, nationality, ancestry, tribal, Aboriginal, and so on.
Many countries track the poor and underprivileged, but these categories mean different things in
different places. Disability is even more difficult to pin down. Gender is easier to define
(although ambiguities exist there as well), but little information is gathered that is specific to the
science-related workforce. “Comprehensive, internationally comparable data on the worldwide
science and engineering workforce do not exist,” says the National Science Foundation in its
Science and Engineering Indicators 2014 report. From what we do know, however, it's clear that
we can do better.
To that end, we believe that data should be a high priority. Scientists pride themselves on their
objectivity, but personal experience and point of view have a lot to do with what questions get
asked in the first place and how researchers go about answering them. The people in science and
engineering are driving the world's most vital engine of prosperity and new ideas. Who are they?
This article was originally published with the title "The Inclusion Equation."
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Fred Guterl is executive editor of Scientific American.
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Comments
rhoma September 17, 2014, 8:10 AM
"Science and technology are society's main engines of prosperity" That's an interesting
hypothesis. Evidence?
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sunnymarek rhoma September 17, 2014, 11:41 AM
How about the fact that information technology has developed to the point where such a
significantly larger percentage of our global population has access to knowledge. There
are drawbacks to technology and we must understand them, in particular when it comes
to children. They mustn't spend so much time playing video games and should spend
more time playing outside like in the past. However they are the ones that will likely
build and program a practical quantum computer. Or perhaps understand "closed timelike
curves" that quantum mechanics allows and build a computer significantly faster than
even a classical quantum machine. That's why I channel my kid's interest in technology
and games into programming where they can make their own games.
- semiconductor and microprocessor engineer
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EthanTaliesin rhoma September 18, 2014, 10:00 AM
I think it's pretty clear that advancements in science and technology are what has enabled
capitalism to stave off the Malthusian fate.
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flueedo rhoma September 18, 2014, 2:16 PM
The history of our civilization, its improvements and prosperity, has been the history of
developing new technologies that allowed us to 'tame' nature to an ever-increasing extent.
From ancient agricultural techniques to the latest most efficient electrical motor or the
newest developed anti-biotic, it's all evidence of that. A never-ending amount of it..
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mlangdon September 20, 2014, 12:45 PM
Many of the studies that are cited in this story are biased. Studies that use successful
firms and do not include failed firms are taking part in winners bias while also confusing
correlation with causation. They also fail to take into account luck. Using current
significance tests, 1 in 20 firms out of 1500 will show success that is simply luck and not
diversity. Also, if diversity is so important, why are most tech firms homogenous. In fact,
many of your largest economies are homogenous--Germany and Japan stand out for their
success and lack of diversity. Studies that use a small number of participants are too
variable to be reliable and should not be cited.
Also, if you are going to talk about diversity, but ignore age as part of it, you are selling
bunk. You will notice that Apple and Google provided "some" demographic data, but not
age. Age bigotry is the new norm in the tech field.
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JSBrooks September 25, 2014, 7:48 PM
After 15 years of research and advanced education I found the wealthy bought their PhDs
and professorships in the USA. IQ and ability had nothing at all to do with academic
success, or acknowledgement. Thus, I conclude the next great power will recognize and
empower its genius regardless of one's social status.
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