Scientists explore why identity and history matter in science
My constellations from Mi'kmaq are not in textbooks — that's erasing our stories, says astrophysicist
You may wonder what the bizarre subatomic world of quantum physics or the fates of distant stars have to do with our everyday lives.
But even the strangest aspects of the universe make us who and what we are. And who we are, and where we come, from shape what we know and how we know it.
Quantum physicist Shohini Ghose at Wilfrid Laurier University, and Mi'kmaq astrophysicist Hilding Neilson at Memorial University were interviewed for the Conversations at the Perimeter podcast, produced by the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. They discussed the connections between identity and science.
Perimeter Institute's Lauren Hayward and Colin Hunter interviewed both scientists.
Shohini Ghose on a quantum social revolution
You wrote a really nice article for Morals and Machines, and the theme was how quantum can help us go beyond the binary. So what are some of the the ways that we can learn about non-binary thinking inspired by quantum mechanics?
Well, everything in quantum mechanics is about letting go of specifics and precision. The idea that science and the way we think about science can impact society is not new. As our science evolves, our social thinking also evolves.
For example, the Industrial Revolution and thinking around possessions and mass marketing and scales of how we think about things, as well as knowing exactly one thing or another — that has all absolutely shaped the way we behave socially. So to me, it feels like whether we like it or not, this whole new revolution with new quantum technologies that actually harnesses these stranger properties of quantum...all of that is based on quantum ideas. But now we're getting to the parts that we were kind of ignoring, like the uncertainty and entanglement.
Perhaps in society too, we will naturally start expanding our choices from right and wrong to a more broader spectrum and not just right or wrong, or any time we try to have polar opposite kind of thinking — I think perhaps that we will start evolving and we will get to newer ways and new approaches which can influence so many aspects of our behaviour, whether we're choosing what we want to eat at a restaurant versus our politics and our policies, and so many, many aspects of our identities.
Ghose's forthcoming book, Her Time, Her Space: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Universe, will be published this fall.
Hilding Neilson on the legacy of colonalism in astronomy
Can you talk about what astro-colonialism is?
When we talk about astronomy and science and space, we talk about them in terms of a certain perspective, and that perspective tends to be Eurocentric.
So for instance, the constellations in the northern hemisphere, we have the Big Dipper or Ursa major. We have Cassiopeia, Cepheus, we have Draco, and they all come from this one historical context, largely Greek and Roman astronomy.
And the Greeks and Romans told great stories about these things. And as you travel through time, those constellations sort of get maintained through star maps and European courts. It became part of the navigation in the oceans when we had first colonization of the Americas and then the slave trade. And they kept existing until the 20th century when the International Astronomical Union formed, which was great. It was supporting astronomy worldwide, but at the time it was essentially a bunch of white dudes from Europe, and they formed a committee to simplify the night sky and have 88 constellations.
There are people around the world, whether it's in Asian countries, in Asian regions, in the North, Northern Europe, Indigenous peoples in the Americas, Indigenous peoples who have their own stories — [their] own constellations. We don't see them anymore. I open a textbook. I see Ursa major — I don't see my constellations from Mi'kmaq or Haudenosaunee constellations or Salish or Inuit constellations. That's erasing our stories, and that's colonialism.
Then we have the future of colonialism, which is going to space. The way we do space exploration and space settlement is the exact same narrative that we did when Canada, the U.S., was being settled — the pioneer, the frontiersmanship, man versus nature element.
Tell us just a little bit about your own personal relationship with the night sky.
I'm Mi'kmaq from Newfoundland. And we didn't grow up in an Indigenous community because lost settlements were more spread out across the island. So I grew up basically in suburbia watching Mr. Dressup and MuchMusic. So I didn't really have a strong connection with my heritage and where I come from.
One of the best parts of the Western coastline other than Gros Morne and the skiing is the clear night skies, seeing the Milky Way and all the stars, meteor showers and you feel you see this blanket of stars, it feels like home.
Listen to both of these interviews wherever you get your favourite podcasts or click on the play button above
*This episode was produced by Chris Wodskou.
