Science is Fallible: Angela Saini

In this episode, I interviewed Angela Saini with Dr. Mike Love. Angela is a prominent author interested in bridging science and society. Her works include the fantastic books:

• ⁠Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story
• ⁠⁠Superior: The Return of Race Science
• ⁠The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality

Transcription

Transcription rendered by Zoom

Angela Saini: Yeah. My name’s Angela Saney. I’m a science journalist and author Right now, I teach science writing at MIT, and I’m a Moynihan public scholar at CCNY until the end of next year. I started off as an engineering student. So I studied engineering at Oxford, and then I went straight into journalism because I got involved in student activism, especially around anti-racism, and that got me into journalism. And

6 00:00:47.850 –> 00:00:50.121 Angela Saini: I’ve been doing that ever since.

7 00:00:50.590 –> 00:00:55.129 Angela Saini: But my work really is about combining science and the social sciences.

8 00:00:55.750 –> 00:01:05.939 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, awesome. So would you mind painting a picture of who you are? You already talked about bridging science and society, but like, what do you think compelled you to to be passionate about these 2 things, and and making that bridge.

9 00:01:07.428 –> 00:01:12.999 Angela Saini: I think. It was a number of things. If I hadn’t got involved

10 00:01:13.190 –> 00:01:18.389 Angela Saini: in activism at university, I think I would have just ended up being an engineer.

11 00:01:18.830 –> 00:01:35.979 Angela Saini: Because I really loved it. I really enjoyed my degree so much, but I grew up in a part of London, which at the time the far right, was very active. So in South East London it was an area known for white flight. So

12 00:01:35.980 –> 00:01:57.199 Angela Saini: people who left East London because there were too many immigrants moved to South East London, and so when my parents moved there, we were some of the few ethnic minorities. We really stood out, and there were fascist marches through the town. There were places that you couldn’t go at certain times. There are a number of racist murders in that area in the eighties and nineties. So it’s just

13 00:01:57.230 –> 00:01:59.840 Angela Saini: part of my life. I couldn’t, really.

14 00:02:00.380 –> 00:02:08.030 Angela Saini: you know, there was no way of not having it be part of my life whether I wanted to or not. And so when I got to university and I got involved in

15 00:02:08.060 –> 00:02:10.300 Angela Saini: anti-racism work.

16 00:02:10.720 –> 00:02:12.819 Angela Saini: That’s when I started writing about

17 00:02:12.890 –> 00:02:17.109 Angela Saini: these topics. And when I left university, my goal was always

18 00:02:17.260 –> 00:02:18.105 Angela Saini: to

19 00:02:20.190 –> 00:02:29.820 Angela Saini: work in that area. So kind of I mean we call it social justice. Now, it wasn’t known as social justice then. It was just reporting. So I was doing political reporting all kinds of stuff.

20 00:02:30.171 –> 00:02:38.899 Angela Saini: And it was. It was later that I decided to specialize in science reporting. So I wasn’t a science reporter. To begin with, I was just an everyday journalist.

21 00:02:40.030 –> 00:02:53.069 Angela Saini: And then, when I did come to science reporting, I wanted to bring that same sensibility. What I’d learned in investigations and in political reporting. I wanted to bring that to science, because for me this is also a

22 00:02:53.430 –> 00:03:00.610 Angela Saini: an establishment of power. It’s it’s a way of projecting power, and scientists have a lot of

23 00:03:01.020 –> 00:03:05.039 Angela Saini: control over how we think about ourselves and imagine ourselves.

24 00:03:05.533 –> 00:03:06.460 Angela Saini: So it’s

25 00:03:06.570 –> 00:03:09.040 Angela Saini: doubly important that they get things right.

26 00:03:09.240 –> 00:03:10.200 Angela Saini: And

27 00:03:10.450 –> 00:03:23.080 Angela Saini: the history of science is, especially when it comes to race, but also when it comes to sex. And gender is of getting things sometimes very, very badly wrong for political reasons. So a lot of my job is about

28 00:03:23.650 –> 00:03:28.579 Angela Saini: trying to unpick that and show how we might do these things better.

29 00:03:29.670 –> 00:03:41.150 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, definitely. And and before we move on, I think this is a good opportunity to introduce. You know Dr. Mike Love, who is also joining us on the podcast and Mike, would you mind, you know, giving a quick intro of yourself for the for the viewers.

30 00:03:41.150 –> 00:03:48.916 Michael Love UNC he/him: Oh, sure! So yep. I’m a. I’m a a Professor U. And C. Chapel Hill in genetics and biostatistics, and

31 00:03:49.320 –> 00:03:58.107 Michael Love UNC he/him: have had a good time getting to know Jp, through the through the Phd program here, and binformatics and computational biology and

32 00:03:58.640 –> 00:04:07.140 Michael Love UNC he/him: the, you know, Dr. Sidney’s books have been really influential in coursework here, like we talk about them in.

33 00:04:07.270 –> 00:04:11.555 Michael Love UNC he/him: we have a data communication class where we talk about, you know,

34 00:04:12.740 –> 00:04:22.190 Michael Love UNC he/him: message and audience. And who is writing and and how does that affect the questions that are allowed to be asked? Things like that so really happy to be here.

35 00:04:22.660 –> 00:04:26.289 Angela Saini: I’m not a doctor. I don’t have a Phd.

36 00:04:26.290 –> 00:04:26.610 Michael Love UNC he/him: Sorry.

37 00:04:26.610 –> 00:04:30.856 Angela Saini: No, I teach I yeah, I’m I never got a Phd.

38 00:04:31.460 –> 00:04:34.589 JP Flores (he/him): She did the same thing when I emailed her she was, by the way, I’m not a doctor.

39 00:04:34.590 –> 00:04:35.150 Angela Saini: As well.

40 00:04:35.150 –> 00:04:36.417 JP Flores (he/him): My eyes even.

41 00:04:37.797 –> 00:04:57.042 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. But let’s get right into it. So let’s talk. You know your your 2 books 2 of many really inferior and and superior. So these are 2 pieces of literature that you know personally help me solidify my passion for bridging science and and society. But, can you talk about where the inspiration to write these 2 pieces come from? I know there’s a lot of like

42 00:04:57.769 –> 00:05:02.720 JP Flores (he/him): life experiences you just talked about, and and where you grew up and whatnot, but like.

43 00:05:02.760 –> 00:05:09.199 JP Flores (he/him): I don’t know. Can you just tell us about you know why, where, when? Just just the conception.

44 00:05:09.200 –> 00:05:09.590 Angela Saini: Was he?

45 00:05:09.590 –> 00:05:10.700 JP Flores (he/him): These pieces.

46 00:05:11.147 –> 00:05:17.410 Angela Saini: Well, inferior the idea for that came after I had had my son

47 00:05:19.350 –> 00:05:41.960 Angela Saini: and I was getting back into work, and I just had to take whatever work came along, and this editor at the Observer, which is the Sunday edition of the Guardian in the Uk. Asked me to write a story on the menopause, which is something I knew nothing about. It was, and I had to say human biology was not my area like. I said I had an engineering degree, and I tended to write on tech

48 00:05:42.310 –> 00:05:45.989 Angela Saini: and physical sciences maths, that kind of thing.

49 00:05:46.590 –> 00:05:52.630 Angela Saini: so it’s very new to me writing about human biology, and coincidentally, at that time this was

50 00:05:52.730 –> 00:05:55.965 Angela Saini: 2014, 2015, maybe

51 00:05:57.400 –> 00:06:01.020 Angela Saini: an article. A paper had just been published by some

52 00:06:01.730 –> 00:06:13.950 Angela Saini: scientists in Canada, arguing that the reason that women experience the menopause, the evolutionary reason was that throughout evolutionary history older women just weren’t having sex

53 00:06:14.273 –> 00:06:25.600 Angela Saini: that older men were having sex, but with younger women and older women just weren’t having sex. And it was a very it was, hugely criticized when it came out, I think, partly because there was no mechanism there.

54 00:06:25.780 –> 00:06:30.024 Angela Saini: and it didn’t chime with people’s real life experiences, of course.

55 00:06:30.590 –> 00:06:37.119 Angela Saini: and and you do have in evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. You have all these kind of

56 00:06:37.310 –> 00:06:38.570 Angela Saini: sometimes

57 00:06:39.160 –> 00:06:57.400 Angela Saini: outlandish ideas to explain why society looks, the way it does, or how things came to be. So it was, you know. It came under warranted suspicion. But what I found fascinating was that it was men who had. It was 3 male scientists who had worked on this paper.

58 00:06:57.890 –> 00:07:18.490 Angela Saini: and, conversely, one of the leading hypotheses at the time. The grandmother hypothesis which says that the reason we live so long into our infertile years as humans is because grandmothers have been so important to the survival of their grandchildren. And that’s not to say that this is that’s necessarily correct the correct mechanism, but it does have

59 00:07:18.930 –> 00:07:31.280 Angela Saini: statistical power behind it, because we do know that even in modern day societies. The presence of a grandmother does increase the likelihood of survival of her children and grandchildren.

60 00:07:31.440 –> 00:07:41.310 Angela Saini: and it was mainly women that had been working on the grandmother hypothesis the person who first came up with it was a man, I should add, but you know it was many women who are now working on it.

61 00:07:41.420 –> 00:07:46.059 Angela Saini: And I found this really intriguing, because, of course, I’d grown up in this

62 00:07:46.070 –> 00:07:51.380 Angela Saini: tradition which told me that it didn’t matter what your background was. Science was just science.

63 00:07:51.933 –> 00:08:10.230 Angela Saini: It shouldn’t matter your race, age, gender. Nothing should make any difference, because these were facts that people are dealing with. These are, you know, cold, hard truths. And yet there was a clear gender split in terms of who was favouring which explanation which evolutionary explanation.

64 00:08:10.320 –> 00:08:14.079 Angela Saini: And when I looked after I that piece came out, and I looked

65 00:08:14.230 –> 00:08:19.090 Angela Saini: more carefully at other areas of science looking at sex difference.

66 00:08:19.870 –> 00:08:36.980 Angela Saini: I mean, it was just full of very weird explanations, especially the further back. You went into history early twentieth and the nineteenth century. There was all kinds of weird claims being made about sex difference, for example, that there was an entire book written

67 00:08:37.179 –> 00:08:41.999 Angela Saini: by the reproductive biologist, Walter Heap, at the beginning of the twentieth century, during

68 00:08:42.200 –> 00:08:50.669 Angela Saini: the protests for the right to vote for women, to have the right to vote that if women went out to fight for their

69 00:08:51.340 –> 00:09:15.370 Angela Saini: for for the right to vote, that they would undermine their ability to have children, because it would damage that the exertion would damage their reproductive systems. An entire book by one of the world’s leading reproductive bulges of his day. And so this was a very fraught, clearly a very fraught area, politically, for science. And that’s what I wanted to look at was just to

70 00:09:15.992 –> 00:09:31.099 Angela Saini: challenge that idea that many of us have grown up with that. Science isn’t political at all. Of course there is politics there. There is society there. There is culture there, because scientists are just humans like the rest of us, and they have their own ideas about the world.

71 00:09:34.383 –> 00:09:38.760 Michael Love UNC he/him: I can. I can jump in with a question. So it’s kind of leading off on that. So

72 00:09:39.120 –> 00:09:40.364 Michael Love UNC he/him: a lot of

73 00:09:40.880 –> 00:09:42.700 Michael Love UNC he/him: a lot of science that

74 00:09:43.314 –> 00:09:52.620 Michael Love UNC he/him: you know, strikes us especially so the example you just gave like it strikes us as phony and and and just patently motivated

75 00:09:52.700 –> 00:10:02.190 Michael Love UNC he/him: with, you know, like not, not critical, not, you know, not sincere asking about phenomenon, but it’s very politically motivated.

76 00:10:02.190 –> 00:10:02.840 Angela Saini: Who.

77 00:10:02.840 –> 00:10:14.580 Michael Love UNC he/him: It often involves, like really ignoring the data and and and like not thinking critically or not, you know, not not being open minded about hypotheses for phenomenon.

78 00:10:14.580 –> 00:10:14.980 Angela Saini: Yeah.

79 00:10:14.980 –> 00:10:19.359 Michael Love UNC he/him: How can we, as scientists or people interested in science.

80 00:10:19.400 –> 00:10:21.090 Michael Love UNC he/him: stay critical.

81 00:10:21.090 –> 00:10:21.690 Angela Saini: Hmm.

82 00:10:22.233 –> 00:10:24.949 Michael Love UNC he/him: With respect to observe data.

83 00:10:25.640 –> 00:10:32.459 Angela Saini: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. I mean, a lot of these explanations historically, have been quite lazy. You know. They’ve neglected a lot

84 00:10:32.680 –> 00:10:47.619 Angela Saini: of other explanations, for what else could be going on? And particularly from history and social sciences. And I think that’s partly because there is a bit of snobbery in the sciences towards the social sciences, right? That this doesn’t look like

85 00:10:48.080 –> 00:11:10.530 Angela Saini: the rigorous stuff that we’re doing. We’re looking at a molecular level. We’re looking, you know we’re studying brainwave patterns. And we’re looking at genetics. So when you’re just studying culture and society, these are moveable, mutable things. And so how can that be generalizable. How can that be ever be useful to what scientists are doing? But, in fact, if we’re talking about human behavior.

86 00:11:11.020 –> 00:11:30.280 Angela Saini: and how humans live, we are social creatures like inherently, and that affects our bodies in a visceral way. The, you know, gendered differences in how we treat it and how we live has an impact on our bodies. And ha! You know how we think and how we navigate the world and on health.

87 00:11:30.300 –> 00:11:42.210 Angela Saini: You know this is particularly true in race. In the United States. Black Americans to this day have lower life expectancy than white Americans, and that’s nothing to do with, you know their bodies as some cohort be

88 00:11:42.500 –> 00:11:45.050 Angela Saini: fundamentally, intrinsically

89 00:11:45.190 –> 00:11:51.330 Angela Saini: less able to survive than other people’s bodies. It’s entirely because of how we live and how how people are treated.

90 00:11:51.460 –> 00:11:52.285 Angela Saini: So.

91 00:11:53.340 –> 00:12:12.860 Angela Saini: I think the challenge for scientists to get out of that way of thinking is to understand the social sciences better, to read history, to read the humanities, and to read all these different disciplines that explain what gender is, what race is, and how that impacts, how people live.

92 00:12:16.070 –> 00:12:43.949 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, thank you for that. And and you mentioned this earlier. But you you said you had 2 several degrees in stem, and you know, I did a quick Google search on which Pedia did all that. And you studied engineering and even have a degree in science and security. Right? So how did you begin your journey into journalism? Because for me, at my current career, stage and and I think in my generation of scientists, you know we are seeing the importance of learning how to communicate our science and and trying to bring in the humanities.

93 00:12:44.292 –> 00:12:55.227 JP Flores (he/him): So how do you think one can start, you know, getting in involved in in journalism? Or how can one start getting educated? Is it pitching pieces to Undark magazine and science? Or, what is

94 00:12:55.540 –> 00:13:14.651 Angela Saini: Yeah, absolutely. I I mean, I think it does start there. I for me. I took a slightly securitis route into science writing, because, like. I said I wasn’t a science writer. To begin with, I was just a general reporter. So I was doing. I was writing these pieces for the student newspapers. When I was at Uni and

95 00:13:15.800 –> 00:13:38.530 Angela Saini: when I left University, I went to work in India for a while. My parents are from India, and I speak Hindi. So I just wanted to do on the ground reporting, and and it is sometimes difficult to do on the ground, reporting as a newbie in the West, because so much of it relies on press releases. You know, it’s you’re not given the time and space to actually go out there and meet people and

96 00:13:38.880 –> 00:13:42.800 Angela Saini: see the reality on the ground, whereas in India at that time, because.

97 00:13:43.060 –> 00:13:47.109 Angela Saini: you know, this was 2,002 2,003. The Internet was still

98 00:13:47.470 –> 00:14:14.028 Angela Saini: in. It’s you know, it wasn’t a widely as widely used tool as it is now. There was no social media really to speak of and so all reporting was on the ground reporting with people, and that was a huge benefit to me, because I was covering all kinds of things. You know, local politics, water, access issues, poverty, slum clearance, all of that. And then when I went back to the Uk, I got a

99 00:14:14.650 –> 00:14:24.167 Angela Saini: traineeship, I mean I my family are not wealthy. I went to a normal, everyday high school, so what you would call in the Us. Estate school.

100 00:14:24.930 –> 00:14:36.090 Angela Saini: public high school! What in the Uk. Is called a State school? I couldn’t afford to do a journalism degree. I just didn’t have the funds for that. So I was very lucky that I got traineeship with

101 00:14:37.320 –> 00:14:46.900 Angela Saini: one of the big broadcasters in the UK. And that paid for everything, you know. That gave me a salary and paid for me to train

102 00:14:47.230 –> 00:14:54.199 Angela Saini: and I learned how to do everything in a newsroom then, and then I went to work for the BBC. For a while as a local reporter, and then

103 00:14:54.240 –> 00:14:58.109 Angela Saini: I decided I wanted to do more kind of in depth

104 00:14:58.350 –> 00:14:59.300 Angela Saini: stuff.

105 00:14:59.699 –> 00:15:08.080 Angela Saini: and go back to science a little bit. So then I left the BBC. And I started writing books and and pieces, but but all the way through.

106 00:15:08.120 –> 00:15:13.540 Angela Saini: I think it is important to just write as much as possible, and there are so many more avenues for that now.

107 00:15:13.560 –> 00:15:15.130 Angela Saini: And because there are

108 00:15:15.330 –> 00:15:19.489 Angela Saini: all these online outlets and social media is a

109 00:15:20.166 –> 00:15:31.780 Angela Saini: platform for journalism now, too, which it wasn’t then. Obviously, so I see people doing amazing work through social media on platforms like Tiktok

110 00:15:31.990 –> 00:15:35.340 Angela Saini: and reaching people in different ways. So I think

111 00:15:35.840 –> 00:15:41.829 Angela Saini: we can be a bit more creative in the way that we think about reporting, and I still do

112 00:15:42.020 –> 00:16:08.270 Angela Saini: work in different ways. So most of my time is spent writing my books. But I write a lot of book reviews, and I write them across the political boards. So I write for right wing publications and left wing publications because I feel that through book reviews. I can reach audiences that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach stuff that wouldn’t get commissioned in a right wing publication. When you write a book review. They can’t do anything about it. Right? You can get a message out there.

113 00:16:09.190 –> 00:16:10.070 Angela Saini: And

114 00:16:10.130 –> 00:16:12.419 Angela Saini: yeah, so there are. I think there are. Still.

115 00:16:12.480 –> 00:16:15.330 Angela Saini: You can work in a much more varied way.

116 00:16:15.700 –> 00:16:18.790 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, that’s and you’re also podcast. Host, aren’t you? Or like A, are, you.

117 00:16:18.790 –> 00:16:19.500 Angela Saini: Yeah.

118 00:16:19.500 –> 00:16:20.560 JP Flores (he/him): Science, magazine.

119 00:16:20.857 –> 00:16:39.600 Angela Saini: Yeah, that’s right. Science. The journal reached out a few years ago to ask me to host a little segment within their podcast looking, just interviewing people about books, about their books, and we have a different theme every year. We’re still going. I think it’s a fourth year we’re doing this year, and the books we’re looking at this year

120 00:16:39.800 –> 00:16:50.150 Angela Saini: are on Utopia. So you know, future a future to look forward to. So I’m interviewing 6 authors over 6 months about their books.

121 00:16:51.616 –> 00:16:55.073 JP Flores (he/him): Can you quickly comment or not quickly take as long as you want? Because I’m not.

122 00:16:56.246 –> 00:16:58.513 JP Flores (he/him): Can you comment on

123 00:16:59.250 –> 00:17:24.489 JP Flores (he/him): The idea of responsible journalism. Right? Cause. I feel like, you know, you know, this can be. You talk about, you know, subjectivity and scientists. But journalists also have that. journalists are people, too? Right? So when you’re interviewing, let’s say a geneticist like Dr. Mike love here, or let’s say somebody else. You know. How do you? What goes through your mind when you’re thinking about? How? How can I report this responsibly and accurately is possible.

124 00:17:25.670 –> 00:17:34.669 Angela Saini: Well, I think for me is, I’ve learned not to take any one scientist word for anything. So I usually interview a wide range of people within a topic.

125 00:17:35.034 –> 00:17:44.959 Angela Saini: Because people often disagree and especially in the areas that I cover race and gender scientists wildly disagree with each other on even very basic things.

126 00:17:45.000 –> 00:17:48.120 Angela Saini: So I think that’s very important.

127 00:17:48.504 –> 00:17:59.079 Angela Saini: And also to get inside people’s histories and why they’re motivated to do what they do. In the course of my career I have interviewed people who have

128 00:17:59.870 –> 00:18:07.779 Angela Saini: why, what some people might think of as outdated or old-fashioned ideas about racial difference or sexual difference.

129 00:18:08.262 –> 00:18:17.070 Angela Saini: And what intrigues me very often about them, because sometimes they’re increasingly going against the grain. You know this idea, for instance, that

130 00:18:17.480 –> 00:18:22.710 Angela Saini: race is biologically real, not just a social construct, or that different races have different

131 00:18:22.880 –> 00:18:29.510 Angela Saini: psychological or intellectual qualities. To them there are still people who believe that within academia

132 00:18:29.882 –> 00:18:33.309 Angela Saini: what intrigues me is, why would you stick with that

133 00:18:33.330 –> 00:18:43.179 Angela Saini: when the weight of evidence is against you, or when you know that it’s going to make it difficult for you to do your work in a world where the evidence isn’t on your side.

134 00:18:43.720 –> 00:18:47.830 Angela Saini: So then I want to understand what is your background?

135 00:18:48.231 –> 00:19:01.509 Angela Saini: What is? What are your politics? And often I find that people are quite cagey about that within the sciences. And this is specific to science. It’s not. People aren’t like that out in the real world. It’s very rare to meet someone

136 00:19:02.040 –> 00:19:11.710 Angela Saini: who isn’t a scientist who tells you that they’re apolitical, you know, it’s vanishingly rare. But scientists tell me that a lot, and I think it’s because they want

137 00:19:11.730 –> 00:19:18.630 Angela Saini: people to believe, and perhaps they also themselves want to believe that what they are doing is motivated purely by

138 00:19:18.870 –> 00:19:23.319 Angela Saini: scientific curiosity, and not by their personal prejudices or politics.

139 00:19:27.320 –> 00:19:34.940 Michael Love UNC he/him: Do you think that? There’s a path that we go down which is more leading towards.

140 00:19:34.980 –> 00:19:40.839 Michael Love UNC he/him: you know. Sloppy science, or or sloppy explanations of phenomenon.

141 00:19:40.970 –> 00:19:42.450 Michael Love UNC he/him: When we

142 00:19:43.010 –> 00:19:44.590 Michael Love UNC he/him: either either

143 00:19:45.820 –> 00:19:46.650 Michael Love UNC he/him: you know.

144 00:19:46.880 –> 00:19:53.880 Michael Love UNC he/him: we’re either overly, you know, overly going towards genetic determinism or overly using the natural world

145 00:19:53.910 –> 00:20:00.600 Michael Love UNC he/him: as an analogy for human behavior. Yeah, could you talk about that?

146 00:20:01.470 –> 00:20:14.180 Angela Saini: Yeah, I mean, that’s a very good question. You know to what degree there’s always been this tension about nurture and nurture, which is a false dichotomy in itself, because, like I said.

147 00:20:14.330 –> 00:20:16.630 Angela Saini: these things intersect, and they

148 00:20:17.140 –> 00:20:18.770 Angela Saini: they feed each other.

149 00:20:18.790 –> 00:20:25.108 Angela Saini: And so the way you live viscerally affects your body, your health outcomes all of these things. But

150 00:20:25.530 –> 00:20:27.140 Angela Saini: you know, I think

151 00:20:27.180 –> 00:20:45.559[] Angela Saini: it waxes and wanes the scientific interest in determinism and essentialism, and we are in a particularly essentialist period. Right now, I think I do think we’ll move away from it. Because, like I said, there are so many other explanations for why the world looks the way it does. Why

152 00:20:45.560 –> 00:21:01.860 Angela Saini: social inequality exists to assume that it’s just because deep down different groups of people are biologically different is such a weird and lazy one to fall back on but that doesn’t mean that people don’t stop trying. They just move to different

153 00:21:03.048 –> 00:21:17.189 Angela Saini: areas of research. So it used to be in the past. It used to be, you know, phrenology, that you would just feel someone’s skull or their brain size would tell you something? And then there was a period of time when

154 00:21:17.190 –> 00:21:34.549 Angela Saini: it was believed that genes or blood types could explain something, and then that turned out to be not very useful. And these days I think the arena is polygenic risk scores that there’s a lot of work happening, and there’s a lot of very big claims being made that

155 00:21:34.860 –> 00:21:35.685 Angela Saini: these

156 00:21:36.630 –> 00:21:40.410 Angela Saini: big, very large scale statistical differences.

157 00:21:41.158 –> 00:21:50.319 Angela Saini: That you see between very large populations. Oh, small statistical differences that you see, between very large populations can somehow be useful in

158 00:21:50.390 –> 00:21:54.869 Angela Saini: determining social policy, and how we treat people, which I just think is

159 00:21:54.950 –> 00:21:56.210 Angela Saini: again.

160 00:21:56.980 –> 00:22:07.339 Angela Saini: you know, even if that were useful, is way too early to be able to determine whether it is useful largely because the populations that you’re dealing with are so enormous.

161 00:22:07.600 –> 00:22:19.030 Angela Saini: And what you’re seeing is correlations. You’re not seeing causal mechanisms here. So how do you even know that those genes are involved in the outcome that you’re looking at. And in the end.

162 00:22:19.120 –> 00:22:34.360 Angela Saini: when we conduct social policy, we’re talking about individuals. We’re not talking about entire populations. How would you administer education differently on the basis of that, because every single child is different, and it would be deeply unfair

163 00:22:34.400 –> 00:22:43.019 Angela Saini: to assume things about the child based on the group that they’re in. Of course, I mean, I would hate to live in a system like that, and that would really take us back to.

164 00:22:43.390 –> 00:22:44.210 Angela Saini: you know.

165 00:22:44.680 –> 00:22:49.550 Angela Saini: and kind of eugenic idea of the world that I don’t think any of us want to live in.

166 00:22:52.860 –> 00:22:54.090 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, that definitely.

167 00:22:54.540 –> 00:23:04.260 JP Flores (he/him): And you know, from the perspective of an early career scientist, I I think your work should be included in graduate school curriculums. And, in fact, Mike, you know, tries to plug some of that in some of his own classes.

168 00:23:04.657 –> 00:23:15.072 JP Flores (he/him): But if you if you could go back in time, and somehow, you know, install your work in your own classes and curriculum, or someone else’s work. How exactly would you do that? And

169 00:23:15.600 –> 00:23:20.120 JP Flores (he/him): why, you kind of explain the why. And do you think you would have seen the importance then.

170 00:23:21.638 –> 00:23:51.080 Angela Saini: I mean, I I do wish that I’d had more exposure to the social sciences when I was doing my engineering degree absolutely. And, in fact, where I got that exposure was years later, like I said, when I was working at the BBC. I did a part time degree in the Department of War studies at kings in London. And what’s interesting about that department is, it is very interdisciplinary, because war studies involves understanding technology as well as understanding things like strategy and politics.

171 00:23:51.397 –> 00:23:59.329 Angela Saini: So they have to draw on different disciplines. And that was the first time that I was exposed to. For example, feminist critiques of science.

172 00:24:00.020 –> 00:24:00.650 Angela Saini: and

173 00:24:00.690 –> 00:24:11.329 Angela Saini: racial critiques of science. I’d never seen that before, and that, I think, had a very profound impact on me because it just opened up a whole new world of literature.

174 00:24:11.720 –> 00:24:13.310 Angela Saini: And to this day

175 00:24:13.641 –> 00:24:22.979 Angela Saini: a lot of the books that I read I mean, I do read, you know, everyday popular science books, but most of the books that I read are academic texts.

176 00:24:23.080 –> 00:24:24.739 Angela Saini: So I get sent.

177 00:24:25.278 –> 00:24:39.270 Angela Saini: The academic presses send me their lists every year. And most of what I read is social science from academic presses, because it’s just so rich. It’s just incredible, really and genuinely, I think all my work really is

178 00:24:39.270 –> 00:24:56.940 Angela Saini: is explaining social science to scientists and science to social scientists. That’s pretty much all I do. I’m not inventing anything special just being an intermediary for those 2 worlds. But there’s so much to learn, I and I. It surprises me still that

179 00:24:57.110 –> 00:25:05.504 Angela Saini: that isn’t more integrated, although I think that is changing. I mean, I already do quite a few talks at different universities. I teach

180 00:25:06.230 –> 00:25:15.229 Angela Saini: Just this year I was teaching a couple of classes at Columbia for the journalism students there, and, like I said, I teach at Mit now, and the approach I take with the course. There

181 00:25:15.250 –> 00:25:27.050 Angela Saini: is a very interdisciplinary one is to remind these science reporters that they have to draw on these other disciplines, to think about these things and around, and to always question

182 00:25:27.270 –> 00:25:29.480 Angela Saini: scientists, because I think

183 00:25:29.830 –> 00:25:36.830 Angela Saini: you know, as I was saying earlier, we have a tendency to hear a scientist say something and just take that as gospel.

184 00:25:37.374 –> 00:25:40.100 Angela Saini: And that is a very damaging

185 00:25:40.390 –> 00:25:44.880 Angela Saini: thing to do. As a journalist you have to interrogate always.

186 00:25:45.700 –> 00:25:46.849 Michael Love UNC he/him: One of the

187 00:25:47.190 –> 00:26:09.119 Michael Love UNC he/him: one of the places that I I was surprised and I found really interesting is in graduate studies in in the the committee meeting. So the Phd. Student will assemble a committee like, I need all of these people to do my research, and these people come into the room, and they might not have ever met each other before. Cause this person’s from epi and this person’s from, you know.

188 00:26:09.120 –> 00:26:19.455 Michael Love UNC he/him: some social science discipline this person’s from genetics, and those become really interesting conversations. Sometimes student has to be like, Hey, you know, you’re here for me, by the way.

189 00:26:20.300 –> 00:26:25.310 Michael Love UNC he/him: but it’s it’s it’s fascinating to see. You know how much you get out of

190 00:26:25.380 –> 00:26:31.216 Michael Love UNC he/him: putting all the people in the room who have all these different views on the same question.

191 00:26:31.560 –> 00:26:50.249 Angela Saini: Hmm, yeah, absolutely. And I, it does require some humility, I think you know, to just accept that somebody from a different discipline might have something useful to say about your discipline. People can get quite defensive, I’ve noticed sometimes. But if we just take a step back.

192 00:26:50.350 –> 00:26:57.450 Angela Saini: and except that there are things about the world we don’t know. I mean, even now I was just having a an email exchange with a

193 00:26:57.710 –> 00:26:58.605 Angela Saini: very

194 00:26:59.920 –> 00:27:01.080 Angela Saini: senior

195 00:27:02.397 –> 00:27:08.269 Angela Saini: very experienced anthropologist, who had a very fixed idea about

196 00:27:08.937 –> 00:27:20.400 Angela Saini: about the topic that my last book was about, which is the origins of patriarchy, and she believed that there was this one single mechanism that could explain male domination in our species.

197 00:27:20.470 –> 00:27:21.780 Angela Saini: and I just

198 00:27:22.400 –> 00:27:29.990 Angela Saini: and she hadn’t really read it beyond her own field. She hadn’t read any history. She hadn’t read the social sciences.

199 00:27:30.885 –> 00:27:31.680 Angela Saini: And

200 00:27:32.340 –> 00:27:46.990 Angela Saini: you know, I don’t think there is ever one biological mechanism that can explain any big social phenomena, you know, especially as big as patriarchy or racial injustice. We have to look at everything, but I think there is

201 00:27:47.170 –> 00:27:56.729 Angela Saini: this tendency or this attraction for scientists in wanting to believe that they can just find that one thing that will explain the whole world.

202 00:27:56.790 –> 00:28:00.495 Angela Saini: That thing really doesn’t exist. I wish it did, but it really doesn’t.

203 00:28:02.490 –> 00:28:06.780 JP Flores (he/him): As a scientist, I agree, you’re a scientist. I agree.

204 00:28:07.276 –> 00:28:17.729 JP Flores (he/him): So before we move on to more fun questions, you’re a podcast host. So from host to host, what would you ask yourself if you’re in my position right now?

205 00:28:17.977 –> 00:28:24.169 Angela Saini: I don’t know if I really count as a podcast. Host, because, like, I said, I only just do this little segment once a month.

206 00:28:25.086 –> 00:28:25.973 Angela Saini: But

207 00:28:27.360 –> 00:28:34.199 Angela Saini: I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been asked pretty much every question possible previously by other people.

208 00:28:36.250 –> 00:28:38.460 Angela Saini: I really don’t know. I’m sorry.

209 00:28:38.626 –> 00:28:39.289 JP Flores (he/him): And yet no worries.

210 00:28:39.290 –> 00:28:40.579 Angela Saini: Know what everybody does. I don’t.

211 00:28:40.580 –> 00:28:48.312 JP Flores (he/him): I always put people on the spot like that because they’re like, Oh, my gosh! I’ve been waiting for this question my whole life, just so like if they had a planted question. Yeah.

212 00:28:48.900 –> 00:28:50.639 Angela Saini: I wish I did. Sorry.

213 00:28:50.640 –> 00:28:56.720 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, no, no worries. One question did come to mind, and it’s it’s, you know, being

214 00:28:56.910 –> 00:29:10.220 JP Flores (he/him): being well traveled right going from the States to let’s say, the Uk. What have been the major differences in in the interpretation of your work or the conversation surrounding your work like? Is there actual geographic, you know, difference between the 2.

215 00:29:10.220 –> 00:29:15.909 Angela Saini: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It’s huge, the Us. I mean, we have these conversations with our British

216 00:29:16.475 –> 00:29:41.540 Angela Saini: immigrant friends in the Uk. In the us all the time one of the big differences. And culturally, even though we imagine that we know the Us. Because we’re exposed to so much Us. Culture when we’re growing up, pop culture, when you’re actually here, you realize how different it really is. I mean it. It is as foreign to me as any other place I’ve ever been to. To be honest. And I think part of it is, scale

217 00:29:41.930 –> 00:29:48.790 Angela Saini: country is just so big. There’s no one way to generalize about America or Americans, and how they think

218 00:29:49.150 –> 00:29:56.860 Angela Saini: but the thing I value the most about being here is that the scholarship around race and gender is just so mature

219 00:29:56.930 –> 00:29:59.350 Angela Saini: and so sophisticated.

220 00:29:59.370 –> 00:30:08.310 Angela Saini: which, frankly, it isn’t in Europe, you know. Th this, the traditions of of exploring race and gender in Europe are fairly

221 00:30:08.340 –> 00:30:10.019 Angela Saini: shallow and not

222 00:30:11.200 –> 00:30:16.950 Angela Saini: fairly recent, I mean. So in term times quite shallow. And there aren’t that many people.

223 00:30:16.970 –> 00:30:18.980 Angela Saini: whereas in the in the Us.

224 00:30:19.050 –> 00:30:24.010 Angela Saini: Because of its history, and because it has nurtured these really

225 00:30:24.250 –> 00:30:28.539 Angela Saini: great progressive movements within Academia

226 00:30:28.610 –> 00:30:34.070 Angela Saini: there is just so much excellent work that’s being done here. And so I really feel pushed as a

227 00:30:34.110 –> 00:30:35.180 Angela Saini: writer.

228 00:30:36.400 –> 00:30:41.200 Angela Saini: that, you know, there are just wonderful, wonderful academics here, doing amazing work.

229 00:30:41.430 –> 00:30:47.758 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. And as a writer journalist. How? What were your thoughts on the blitzer winners this year?

230 00:30:48.110 –> 00:30:49.669 Angela Saini: Oh, I haven’t seen them sorry.

231 00:30:50.480 –> 00:31:09.339 Angela Saini: My husband works at the New York Times, and they always have a party when announces I always get some prizes, but I hadn’t heard of any other people, because I like. I said, I haven’t lived here very long, so I don’t know the landscape of the media in the Us. Very well, I’m afraid. But I’m sure there are some amazing people on that list.

232 00:31:09.940 –> 00:31:15.220 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. Well, do you have any like favorite journalists, writers like anyone you admire in in your field.

233 00:31:15.890 –> 00:31:16.575 Angela Saini: Oh,

234 00:31:17.740 –> 00:31:23.107 Angela Saini: yeah, I mean, I mean, like I said, a lot of the work I read at the moment is

235 00:31:23.540 –> 00:31:29.810 Angela Saini: published by academic presses. So the writers, I mean I can list them for you right now, because I’m looking at them.

236 00:31:30.410 –> 00:31:45.400 Angela Saini: What I’m reading right now, but the stuff that I’ve loved is Paisley Curras? He’s a political scientist. But he wrote this excellent book, which came out either last year or the year before called sex is as sex does, which looks at the way in which

237 00:31:45.670 –> 00:32:08.930 Angela Saini: different New York City agencies and State agencies thought about sex and gender and define them differently, which just goes to show how political you know these definitions can be and the people that I I interview for my work. So for the Science series. I just finished speaking with Rachel O’dwyer, who’s an Irish academic and writer

238 00:32:09.050 –> 00:32:11.970 Angela Saini: who writes about tokens. So

239 00:32:12.350 –> 00:32:26.619 Angela Saini: you know, air miles and coupons, and all these different forms of exchange that have now become increasingly important as a substitute for money in the digital age, and in some cases as a substitute for

240 00:32:26.930 –> 00:32:34.859 Angela Saini: payment of income. So Amazon pays some of its Turk workers so informal workers through

241 00:32:35.130 –> 00:32:40.620 Angela Saini: Amazon vouchers. You don’t get paid in cash, you get paid in Amazon vouchers. So it’s a complete

242 00:32:40.820 –> 00:32:42.889 Angela Saini: change in how we imagine.

243 00:32:43.110 –> 00:32:46.769 Angela Saini: and bartering and money and exchange and cash.

244 00:32:47.281 –> 00:32:54.820 Angela Saini: So there are these wonderful. So like, I said. It’s many academic writers I have to say that I’m drawing the most exciting ideas from.

245 00:32:55.940 –> 00:32:56.250 JP Flores (he/him): Cool.

246 00:32:56.990 –> 00:33:03.259 JP Flores (he/him): Alright. So let’s say your name comes up, and you are the winner of a Pulitzer prize.

247 00:33:04.112 –> 00:33:11.969 JP Flores (he/him): And Mike and I are in your car, and we’re about to go celebrate. What song are you celebrating to.

248 00:33:12.450 –> 00:33:13.475 Angela Saini: Oh,

249 00:33:14.940 –> 00:33:20.980 Angela Saini: I I mean I’m a massive jazz fan, so probably something by Nina Simone.

250 00:33:23.690 –> 00:33:26.609 Angela Saini: I don’t know. I’m struggling to think of which one

251 00:33:30.590 –> 00:33:33.139 Angela Saini: I mean my classic is, I wish I

252 00:33:33.580 –> 00:33:35.830 Angela Saini: knew how it felt to be free.

253 00:33:36.402 –> 00:33:47.879 Angela Saini: And I think that was important to me, growing up because it was quite tough growing up where I did, and it really did. And you always constantly expected to rob, revise down your expectations for your life.

254 00:33:49.420 –> 00:33:55.760 Angela Saini: so yeah, I always, whether I win a blitz or not, which is unlikely. But whether I do or don’t.

255 00:33:55.880 –> 00:34:12.459 Angela Saini: the the I often look at myself and think, wow! How did that happen? How did you manage to get so lucky is to be able to write books for a living and and just research topics that you love so much because it honestly did not feel like a possibility. When I was 10 years old.

256 00:34:12.540 –> 00:34:13.530 JP Flores (he/him): Wow.

257 00:34:13.810 –> 00:34:15.880 JP Flores (he/him): yeah, when you yeah, go ahead. Mike.

258 00:34:15.880 –> 00:34:19.860 Michael Love UNC he/him: Oh, I just got a brag. North Carolina. Nina Simone.

259 00:34:20.560 –> 00:34:20.940 Michael Love UNC he/him: Yeah.

260 00:34:21.330 –> 00:34:23.400 Michael Love UNC he/him: John Coltrane, the loniest monk.

261 00:34:24.155 –> 00:34:24.530 Angela Saini: Yeah.

262 00:34:25.400 –> 00:34:26.300 Michael Love UNC he/him: To name. 3.

263 00:34:26.619 –> 00:34:33.009 Angela Saini: I mean, that was another great thing about moving to New York is that the jazz scene here is just

264 00:34:33.130 –> 00:34:36.139 Angela Saini: breathtakingly amazing, is so good.

265 00:34:36.989 –> 00:34:41.679 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. Is that is that an invite, Mike? Maybe we should. We should invite Angela down here.

266 00:34:42.239 –> 00:34:44.209 Angela Saini: I’ll come. You tell me, okay.

267 00:34:44.210 –> 00:34:45.769 Michael Love UNC he/him: Great live music down here.

268 00:34:45.770 –> 00:34:46.690 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, I would love.

269 00:34:46.690 –> 00:34:47.100 Angela Saini: That.

270 00:34:49.560 –> 00:34:54.940 JP Flores (he/him): yeah, just out of curiosity. Do you listen to music while you’re doing work while you’re writing, or is it? Is it distracting for you.

271 00:34:55.520 –> 00:35:11.370 Angela Saini: I listen to radio, usually. Yeah. So people speaking. And that and again is a habit from when I was growing up we didn’t have much space, so there was always noise in the background, people speaking so I find it very hard to concentrate unless I can hear people speaking in the background.

272 00:35:13.163 –> 00:35:15.899 JP Flores (he/him): What is your favorite thing to do outside of journalism?

273 00:35:17.410 –> 00:35:21.110 Angela Saini: Well, I have a kid. So a lot of my time is taken up with.

274 00:35:21.617 –> 00:35:31.679 Angela Saini: Just being a parent. I love art and culture. I go to theater quite often. I just saw appropriate on Broadway, which is

275 00:35:31.860 –> 00:35:32.700 Angela Saini: just

276 00:35:32.820 –> 00:35:36.860 Angela Saini: amazing, really brilliant, brilliant production.

277 00:35:37.183 –> 00:35:48.136 Angela Saini: I we we used to go to the theater much more in the Uk. Because it’s a bit less expensive than it is in New York. But we’re very lucky that here we have some friends who work in theater. So we get to go a bit more often.

278 00:35:48.430 –> 00:35:50.120 Angela Saini: yeah. And I travel a lot.

279 00:35:50.651 –> 00:35:55.969 Angela Saini: I love to see the world and especially when I travel for work, I always try and make a holiday out of it.

280 00:35:56.820 –> 00:36:05.390 JP Flores (he/him): It’s amazing. And out of all the places you’ve been, what has been your favorite cuisine or favorite restaurants, like what comes to mind when I ask that question.

281 00:36:05.390 –> 00:36:15.738 Angela Saini: These are very unusual questions getting on stuff like this. Cuisine, right? So I often talk about this with my husband.

282 00:36:16.650 –> 00:36:24.380 Angela Saini: My son’s school has this food fair every year, where all the parents from different parts of the world bring their own world cuisine. So we bought

283 00:36:24.490 –> 00:36:30.869 Angela Saini: chicken Biryani, which is like a very classic Indian dish. But they had everything. They had everything from all over the world.

284 00:36:30.950 –> 00:36:37.360 Angela Saini: And I think I still gravitate towards the India table, because it’s just.

285 00:36:37.370 –> 00:36:44.490 Angela Saini: It’s I think it’s also an emotional thing that I’m so that’s cuisine is so familiar to me, and it’s the one cuisine. I couldn’t live without

286 00:36:45.160 –> 00:36:46.370 Angela Saini: Indian.

287 00:36:46.490 –> 00:36:54.500 Angela Saini: Yeah. My husband’s Biryani is amazing. It’s so so good. But even just doll and rice is my favorite thing to eat.

288 00:36:56.350 –> 00:37:02.846 JP Flores (he/him): Cool. Well, I think those are the questions we had right, Mike, do we have any more? Do you have any last minute ones that are burning in your mind right now.

289 00:37:03.320 –> 00:37:06.500 Michael Love UNC he/him: None for me. It’s been great to chat with you.

290 00:37:07.190 –> 00:37:10.440 Angela Saini: Thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure. I appreciate it.

291 00:37:10.440 –> 00:37:13.859 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, we’ve been fans from afar. So I’m really gonna do this.

292 00:37:13.860 –> 00:37:17.760 Angela Saini: You’re so kind. That means a lot to me. It really does. Thank you.

293 00:37:18.380 –> 00:37:24.970 JP Flores (he/him): I hope you all have a a great rest of your day. And maybe Mike and I can talk about somehow bringing you down here at some point we’ll see.

294 00:37:24.970 –> 00:37:25.949 Angela Saini: Oh, I would love that.

295 00:37:25.950 –> 00:37:27.570 Michael Love UNC he/him: Oh, that’d be great. Yeah.

296 00:37:27.570 –> 00:37:30.509 Angela Saini: Absolutely. You just tell me when.

297 00:37:31.000 –> 00:37:34.789 JP Flores (he/him): Perfect. Alright, y’all, thanks so much. It was very nice meeting you.

298 00:37:35.060 –> 00:37:37.450 Angela Saini: You, too, take care! Bye, bye.