[Fis] Ada Lovelace inspires a question: why are so few women in FIS list?

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear Moises, Ken,  and FIS colleagues,

it is nice returning to the main discussion topic. First, I would like 
to reply about your point on the presence of women in FIS. Well, some of 
them have been involved almost from the very beginning. I will give some 
names: Deborah Conrad (involved in fis 1994 and 1996 conferences), 
Edwina Taborsky, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic* *(well known to everybody), 
Zhao Chuan, Beth Cardier, Raquel del Moral, Bi Lin, Lai Ma, and some 
other names that I will find out during next days. It is quite 
insufficient a presence, but at least I think it is pretty significant.

I also want to thank Ken for his reference about citation indexes for 
science by Eugene Gardfield (Science, 1955). It is really a 
classic--indeed. I was particularly moved  by the inspiration that lead 
him to the citation index creation. The idea came to Gardfield from the 
practice of the legal profession: a citation index was running for the 
interrelation of court cases in the 48 states of the US. Known as the 
Sephard citation systems, it was a listing of individual American court 
cases, each one with a short summary and a record of the other decisions 
and sentences that had referred to the case. This legal model is the 
origin, in 1955, of the archi famous SCI (Science Citation Index)...

The historical point to make is that the legal profession also had been 
a strong source of inspiration for the new scientific organization 
stemming out  during the scientific revolution.  The new experimental 
practices of science were examined not any more through the lens of 
"authority", but through open performances, in front of  witnesses,  
tribunals, and courts. The goal was to establish a public "true" 
register of the new scientific facts, and finally publish them in 
periodical reports and transactions imitating the ones already developed 
by the legal profession.

The brief reflection: it is quite interesting how communication 
addressed to coordinate /_legal action_/ was reoriented to communicate 
_/scientific action/_. Clearly our social information flows, let us 
think on what happen with firms, within markets, etc., have but one 
basic goal: to coordinate the actions of individuals. It fits with some 
comments I made days ago, and with a parallel off-line discussion I was 
keeping with Howard about pan-informational views... In Faustian terms: 
/Information is related to action!/

Best--Pedro

PS. Thanks a lot to Moises and Ken, maybe we should think on having a 
conclusion in the ongoing session, rather fractured with the aftermath 
of the Vienna Conference.



Moisés André Nisenbaum wrote:
>
> Hi, Bob
>
> Thank you for presenting Ada Lovelace to the list. It was great the 
> link you did with previous discussions.
>
> Hi, all.
>
> Have we ever had a discussion about why are so few women in FIS list?
>
> I was yesterday in a seminar that shows that it is a general problem 
> in Science, especially in "hard" disciplines. But there are many women 
> in Mathematics and Information Science fields, so I expected more 
> women in FIS.
>
> This makes me remember the great speak of Neil Degrasse Tyson (3 min) 
> on being Black and Women in Science (https://youtu.be/z7ihNLEDiuM).
>
> What do you think about it?
>
> All the best,
>
> -- 
> Moisés André Nisenbaum
> Doutorando IBICT/UFRJ. Professor. Msc.
> Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro - IFRJ
> Campus Maracanã
>
> moises.nisenbaum at ifrj.edu.br <mailto:moises.nisenbaum at ifrj.edu.br>
>


-- 
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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