What the plant kingdom can teach us about creating a more equitable science world.
"In my life as a plant cultivator and my work as a biologist and author, I have found the relationship between plants and humans deeply inspiring for thinking about the relationships that humans could have with each other. As I lay out in my book Lessons from Plants, the natural world offers us a template and inspiration for a more equitable society — where the needs and contributions of every individual matter equally, relationships among individuals are critical for supporting the collective, and diversity is a driver of sustainable growth. These lessons are particularly necessary in STEM, where monoculture has done some of its deepest damage.
"The cost of this monoculture has never been clearer than now. In the course of this pandemic, the historic and current underrepresentation of Black, Indigenous, and Latino individuals in STEM has contributed to a disproportionate death toll in those communities. America’s long history of biomedical racism has led directly to bad health, lack of access to quality health care, and, in some, to an understandable distrust of public science. And STEM’s current whiteness allows these trends to persist. How do you break up this dangerous monoculture?" - Beronda L. Montgomery
Article: Towards Polyculture