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Tanner RL, Grover N, Anderson ML, et al. Examining cultural structures and functions in biology. Integr Comp Biol. 2021;doi: 10.1093/icb/icab140.
Tanner, R. L., Grover, N., Anderson, M. L., Crocker, K. C., Dutta, S., Horner, A. M., Hough, L. E., Moore, T. Y., Rosen, G. L., Whitney, K. S., & Summers, A. P. (2021). Examining cultural structures and functions in biology. Integrative and comparative biology, . https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icab140
Tanner, Richelle L, et al. "Examining cultural structures and functions in biology." Integrative and comparative biology vol. (2021). doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icab140
Tanner RL, Grover N, Anderson ML, Crocker KC, Dutta S, Horner AM, Hough LE, Moore TY, Rosen GL, Whitney KS, Summers AP. Examining cultural structures and functions in biology. Integr Comp Biol. 2021 Jun 21; doi: 10.1093/icb/icab140. Epub 2021 Jun 21. PMID: 34151345.
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Integr Comp Biol. 2021 Jun 21; doi: 10.1093/icb/icab140. Epub 2021 Jun 21.

Examining cultural structures and functions in biology.

Integrative and comparative biology

Richelle L Tanner, Neena Grover, Michelle L Anderson, Katherine C Crocker, Shuchismita Dutta, Angela M Horner, Loren E Hough, Talia Y Moore, Gail L Rosen, Kaitlin Stack Whitney, Adam P Summers

Affiliations

  1. Department of Animal Science, University of California at Davis, Davis CA 95616.
  2. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Colorado College, Colorado Springs CO 80903.
  3. Department of Biology, The University of Montana Western, Dillon MT 59725.
  4. Genetics Department, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx NY 10461.
  5. RCSB Protein Data Bank, Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine, Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ 08854.
  6. Department of Biology, California State University San Bernardino, San Bernardino CA 92407.
  7. BioFrontiers Institute, Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder CO 80309.
  8. Mechanical Engineering, Robotics Institute, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 48109.
  9. Ecological & Evolutionary Signal Processing & Informatics Lab, Center for Biological Discovery from Big Data, Electrical, and Computer Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia PA 19104.
  10. Science, Technology, & Society Department, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY 14623.
  11. Friday Harbor Laboratories, University of Washington, Friday Harbor WA 98250.

PMID: 34151345 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icab140

Abstract

Scientific culture and structure organize biological sciences in many ways. We make choices concerning the systems and questions we study. Our research then amplifies these choices into factors that influence the directions of future research by shaping our hypotheses, data analyses, interpretation, publication venues, and dissemination via other methods. But our choices are shaped by more than objective curiosity-we are influenced by cultural paradigms reinforced by societal upbringing and scientific indoctrination during training. This extends to the systems and data that we consider to be ethically obtainable or available for study, and who is considered qualified to do research, ask questions, and communicate about research. It is also influenced by the profitability of concepts like open-access-a system designed to improve equity, but which enacts gatekeeping in unintended but foreseeable ways. Creating truly integrative biology programs will require more than intentionally developing departments or institutes that allow overlapping expertise in two or more subfields of biology. Interdisciplinary work requires the expertise of large and diverse teams of scientists working together-this is impossible without an authentic commitment to addressing, not denying, racism when practiced by individuals, institutions, and cultural aspects of academic science. We have identified starting points for remedying how our field has discouraged and caused harm, but we acknowledge there is a long path forward. This path must be paved with field-wide solutions and institutional buy-in: our solutions must match the scale of the problem. Together, we can integrate-not reintegrate-the nuances of biology into our field.

© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.

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