A Physics Expert Had Her Own Theories Mansplained OnstageUntil One Person Stood Up

[Igel]

6. It's all the rage in STEM-related education publicity

to show girls, esp. girls of color, engaged or oohing over sciency stuff.

If you try to discern what the population of the US looks like from a lot of educational materials--I'm talking alumni magazines from a couple of universities, textbooks from two publishers, the district I live in, the district I work in, and the stuff that shows up in my high-school mailbox, the US is probably 80% women, 50% black, 30% Latino, and 4% white female.

Surveys regularly show that if you ask about the percentage of the US population that is Muslim, Jewish, black, Latino, or GLBT the most common estimates are anywhere from twice to 5 or 6 times the actual percentages. It's like claiming credit for work--if you take a team and ask each member what percentage s/he contributed, the total work contributed by all members usually comes out really close to 140% of what was done. (Take away: People are really, really bad at statistics. Meaning my estimates in the 2nd par. are almost certainly off.)