• Question: Do you ever encounter any kind of prejudice surrounding your work? Such as gender or religious bias?

    Asked by Elinor to Laura, Matthew, Andrew on 20 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Matthew Camilleri

      Matthew Camilleri answered on 20 Nov 2014:


      The main prejudice I’ve encountered is mainly against scientists in general, and not against gender or religion.

      When it comes to gender there are a number of precautions in place in order to ensure an equal opportunity to everyone, but sometimes having an equal number of females and males is not really an equal opportunity. In my place of work they try to encourage females to apply for PhDs but it has always been the case that many more males applied for the positions, meaning that you would have to consider choosing the best candidates rather then their gender.

      When it comes to religion I have found all the Universities I’ve been in pretty open to everyone. In UEA there was actually a place of worship set up for Muslims in the Chemistry department and they were allowed ‘time off’ each day to go and pray.

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 20 Nov 2014:


      As a community, scientists will embrace almost anyone, regardless of their background. The only criterion on which we rely is “evidence” – you must base your theories on properly researched scientific evidence.

      Sadly as scientists we are rather regarded by society as “boffins” – a hugely unfair appraisal of scientists!
      Indeed, a couple of us were at a party (I think we were the only “scientists”) and there were a number of people there. We were having a giggle, cracking jokes, getting on like a house on fire, and we two scientists were asked how we knew each other. “Oh, we met during our PhD”.
      “You’ve each got a PhD?”
      “Yes. Why?”
      “But, but, you’re *normal*”

      I think some members of our society think that having a PhD makes you dull, or means that you are somehow not capable of having fun with “normal people” – but we really are just normal people! It happens that we are good at science. Other people are good at fixing cars. Others are good at building houses. They are different skills, different ways of making a living, and none is more important than the other.

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