Science Is Not Colorblind: A Critical Look at Race and Racism in the Past and Future of Neurobiology, Neurotechnology and Artificial Intelligence

Artwork by Megan Lui

Objective. Rigorous. Evidence-based. For physical and natural scientists, these descriptions represent what they hold most dear about their fields: a perpetuation of the idea that all science follows laws that are enforced without involving themselves in the labyrinth of social, cultural, and economic dynamics that otherwise seem to dominate those lives which science seeks to benefit. Throughout the history of scientific discourse, the image of the cool, rational, and politically unentangled scientist has been deftly imposed as an ideal to be aspired towards; “objectivity” and “quantification” have been established as an unquestionably superior form of gathering, interpreting, and valuing data.

Without a doubt, objectivity is generally of great value in research. Because it is so easy to, for example, fudge the mass of a particle to claim the discovery of a new element, extensive ethical and practical barriers have been put in place to ensure ambition does not interfere with true, evidence-based discovery.

However, in a field like neuroscience which uses measurements to classify phenomena yet to be quantified, a hyper-emphasis on the power of empirical measurement obscures a…