Blog #11

This section of  “A Feeling for the Organism,” is particularly interesting as it not only dives into the topics mentioned in prior chapters, but also further blends in other topics mentioned throughout our course. What I found to be particularly fascinating is how central gender is in McClintock’s personal life as well as her career. At the end of my previous blog, I posed a thought-provoking concept by suggesting how different the lives and careers of prominent male scientists (i.e., Benjamin Franklin and Charles Darwin), would be if they were women instead. In one particular passage of this book, I was pleased to see that McClintock similarly reflected on this concept. For instance, in Chapter 5, she notes her encounters with the university’s administration over policy violations, but in self-reflection states that if it were a man doing the same things, he would not have been penalized as harshly (Keller 84). This is a significant point in this biography because prior to this chapter, it is almost tangible the ways that McClintock tries to distance herself from her gender label, and in this instance, she uses it as a way to illustrate the double standards present in her society, and scientific community.

Furthermore, there were many moments highlighted in Barbara McClintock’s life that mirrored concepts and principles in our scientific virtues course. Notably, I found that one theme she highlighted was that of the interconnectedness of science and philosophy. Especially, in Chapter 6, the author illustrates the history of the genetics field and the changes in methodologies and resulting ideologies guiding the field forward. The mindset of empirical thinking versus one that is also guided by utilizing philosophical thought is illustrated in McClintock’s approach/practices. She notes that those that considered a “right route” towards discovering the mechanics underlying the genome stunned her. To McClintock, she considered the genome as a more abstract concept. This approach is one that directly impacts not only her research, but also the way her moral character is illustrated throughout the rest of the section.

In accordance to this mindset, the author notes the relationship between the scientific community and the individual, in Barbara McClintock’s eyes. In a community full of empirical thinkers, McClintock appears to raise the bar for her colleagues, both men and women alike. Keller notes that McClintock resisted ongoing methodological trends in her scientific community and instead went beyond to utilize her own research methods (Keller 87). This poses the following significant questions: to what extent should the scientist be subjected to the framework of the scientific community? Is science becoming more individualistic or more of a community? Furthermore, if science is indeed leaning more towards one side or the other, how has or will this impact scientific virutes?