Tell a story—about science in your life—and use our work so far to make sense of it.
Like What? Thinking back, I (Robin) realized that I was a fidgity, loud, easily distracted (Oooo! A shiny thing….!) non-punctual, chaotic kid. The nuns in elementary school knew exactly what I was: 'an ill-behaved child' who was not 'working up to his potential.' The appropriate treatment was time-outs, notes-to-mom, and occasional paddling. Today, I would be diagnosed ADHD and probably treated with Ritalin or Adderal. And the nuns can't paddle (by law). My life would have been different, for sure, but who knows how?
In High School, we heard all the time about who was and who wasn't 'college material.' My SAT scores proved that I was 'college material,' and I went to college (in spite of crappy grades).
This is science at work, naming, categorizing, measuring, diagnosing, and thus creating (bad kid / ADHD kid or 'college material'). These decisions and labels have consequences, shaping lives. If I were writing this, I might try to recall a specific 'bad kid' story and see if there are other explanations. I might speculate on how my family life made me 'college material.' I think my whole attitude toward 'school' got shaped in these early events.
Carl Elliot would help by framing historically-local 'disorders,' and talking about the 'semantic contagion' involved in lots of articles about ADHD and child-rearing. Brang inspires me to ask what discipline handles it best (his 'is it psychiatric or neurological?' issue). Pinker would look to my genes (and my OC father and alcoholic but literate parents). Lewontin would insist that naming a kid 'disordered' (or not) changes him or her, and that the diagnoses mirror and legitimate already-present societal beliefs.
So really: anything where science worked on or around you. Let your friends know about you. Use our readings to frame and illuminate.
Concepts and Issues—from our work (some of many--might help):
Big Ones: All societies have always had 'theories' of Human Nature (science) and these are active in creating specific Political Systems (politics). Always intertwined.
• determinisms (genetic, biological, cultural and so on)
• reductionisms (limiting our view to a few of many possible causes and influences)
• boundary work (ways science limits, defines, circumscribes)
• ideology (the world view that makes things normal, natural, common-sense. It's always 'political')
• technologies (tests, surgeries, therapies, names-and-definitions, measuring and seeing instruments, ways of talking or writing)
• 'blank slate' (or tabula rasa)
• 'ghost in the machine' (our friend the self or soul)
• noble savages or states of nature
• and with these three (above): John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, Jean Jacques Rousseau--and Ahnoald Schwarzenegger (they'll ALL 'be back'!)
• sociobiology or evolutionary psychology (as disciplines)
• neuroscience / cognitive science (also disciplines—CF: 'boundary work')
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