Breaking the bias against women in science

New York Times : The Times‘s weekly online Room for Debate forum “invites knowledgeable outside contributors to discuss news events and other timely issues,” with readers then commenting. This week’s forum is titled “Breaking the bias against women in science: Should there be affirmative action, or something similar, to advance women in science and related subjects?” Contributors are Nancy Hopkins, an MIT biology professor (“Let’s call it âaffirmative effort’ ”); Janelle Wilson, who teaches Earth science to sixth graders in Georgia and conducts science outreach for NASA (“Get girls interested while they’re young”); Dennis Berkey, president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (“Put female students in leadership roles”); Jeniffer Harper-Taylor, president of the Siemens Foundation (“Training and recognition can make a difference”); and Carrie Lukas, managing director of the Independent Women’s Forum and coauthor of Liberty Is No War on Women (“Don’t regulate individual decisions”). The choice of topic was prompted by a Yale University study that revealed pervasive discrimination against women scientists. Charles Day, Physics Today‘s online editor, wrote about the study in a recent blog post .