Aoife McLysaght appointed Science Advisor to Government

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123248331#Comment_123248331

Staines was the one who pushed for them to "increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty"

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123246116#Comment_123246116

That'll be about three people who will notice, then. Call the cops!

Not much point doing a "women in STEM" series if it only features dead people.

We should have joined CERN 40 years ago.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123248442#Comment_123248442

Ah c'mon and be at least a little bit reasonable.

As a man in STEM I have zero problem with this.

Women have traditionally been very under-represented in STEM - and our fucked-up religion-infused education system with lots of girls-only schools which don't offer physics or chemistry really doesn't help.

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123249005#Comment_123249005

Did that not end years ago? STEM is full of women now. I've seen plenty woman majority labs.

Hotblack Desiato

No, we still have tons of single-sex schools which don't offer a proper range of science subjects, and guess which sex they cater for

am_zarathustra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123246116#Comment_123246116

She was a part of the consortium that sequenced the human genome to stop Venter sequencing it first and patenting it, making a large amount of modern scientific endevour at the pleasure of the super wealthy. She's a solid scientist, with a good publication record and an unusually broad range of interests. I can't see any issue with her being on a stamp, we've put worse on them.

Hamsterchops

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122712393#Comment_122712393

Well if this palmach post is true then it doesn't show McLysaght in a very good light. Unless she's changed her tune and become less ideological since 2022 ?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123249030#Comment_123249030

Are there that many? I left convent school nearly 29 years ago and there was physics and chemistry. Same with the schools my friends went to.

fits

Well I should think a geneticist would know as much about the messiness of human biology as anyone. Best of luck to her in the new role.

Calahonda52

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123249022#Comment_123249022

But what are they at, cleaning test tubes or doing the real deal: its not the head count that matters, its the roles

fits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123249513#Comment_123249513

one of the big issues is the precarious contracts in early career and having children.

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123249513#Comment_123249513

Exactly. You have to question the motives and intellectual honestly who question the promotion of women in leadership roles in stem.

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123249022#Comment_123249022

Are those labs mostly related to biological sciences (like genetics)? Biology is the one science which has always been seen as "for girls". It's kind of simplistic as well for people to frame the problem as purely one of discrimination, when demand is a major factor. My daughter went to a non fee-paying single sex girls' school. They tried out Physics as an option when she was there. It was a small class so should have worked well, but it was a disaster that probably set the cause of STEM back several years. But, that was 15 years ago and I see the school still has Physics as an option for the LC, though subject to demand and availability of a teacher. So, I still wonder whether they actually end up doing it for the LC.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123249485#Comment_123249485

Yes there's still lots of them

It's funny how people always refer to "my school did / didn't do X" as if it's in any way representative of our education system as a whole

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123250072#Comment_123250072

Physics teachers can't be got for love nor money these days so any school which doesn't already have one isn't going to be getting one.

Few schools offering it = fewer students doing it at third level = smaller pool of potential teachers. Vicious circle

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123250072#Comment_123250072

Pharma, biopharama and med device labs are full of women, including management level.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123250232#Comment_123250232

Oh an absolute riot I'm sure.

Except I didn't simply say "my school did it" and leave it at that. I said my school offered those subjects nearly 30 years ago - point being that things change a lot in almost three decades. And I said my friends' schools offered them too. Nor did I say that that's proof there aren't still high numbers of girls' schools that don't offer physics and chemistry.

But I'd need numbers to be convinced. "Tons of", "lots of" - meaningless.

donaghs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123250232#Comment_123250232

It’s definitely important to take the wider view than the “my cousins a woman and she and all her friends are scientists” approach.
however, given that STEM courses have been equally available for girls/girls schools for decades now, and that women are outperforming boys in the leaving cert, and university. And just under half of all Irish chartered accountants are women, and over half of Irish tax professionals are women (https://taxinstitute.ie/members-news/women-in-tax-on-international-womens-day/), there’s a clear under- representation of women still in STEM.

It may just be possible, that there are differences genereally speaking between men and women, meaning that generally, men are more likely to be drawn into STEM courses/job. that of course doesn’t mean all men or all women.

It’s good to encourage women into STEM, to prevent simplistic views that “it’s not for women”. And role models are importsnt for this. It’s a pity then given Aoife McLysaghts statement on women’s sports, and the hardcore zero covid stuff.

BrianD3

Covid and the ISAG are old news now, people have poor memories and attention spans. It's naïve to think that McLysaght would be blacklisted because of the ISAG's antics when there are upsides to her appointment.

-decision making and potentially blame can be deflected to a public figure if there is another pandemic

-government and state agencies get kudos from the public for promoting women in science

-more young women are encouraged to study science and provide a supply of workers and researchers for the university and multinational sectors.

According to media reports today, there have have been 24,800 CAO applications for biological science courses this year. This is far too many.

Reality is, career prospects for many scientists are poor. There are too many PhDs for the number of lecturing positions in third level institutions. Scientific research is mostly carried out by postdocs on short term contracts and mediocre pay. Ultimately, it boils down to money, most scientific research doesn't result in a clear commercial payback meaning the work is neither understood (we can see this in this thread with references to "cleaning test tubes") nor valued. It is hyped though.

Some women benefit from so called positive discrimination but still, women studying science are highly unlikely to become the next Aoife McLysaght. Just as men are highly unlikely to become the next Luke O'Neill. That won't stop young people putting down science on their CAO form, especially given the relentless hyping of STEM that has been going on for decades.

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123254179#Comment_123254179

The proportion of scientists that work in true R&D is tiny. The vast majority in this country work for Multinational manufacturing sites and staff are not easy to get.

These jobs are top class career opportunities with lots of opportunity of promotion well up the ladder beyond the initial scientist job.

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123254630#Comment_123254630

Very true. I know policy can't be driven by anecdotes, but a couple of young(er) acquaintances of mine come to mind, working in the pharma sector and who studied science/technical subjects at third level, in very well paid jobs and are both women. One who always had the personality you know would go far, and is in a senior role in a startup now.

I'm not sure what the poster's point really is. Is it that we're producing too many biology graduates (compared to Physics) or too many Science graduates compared to humanities, or just too many 3rd level graduates as a whole?

Hamsterchops

Mod Edit: Warned for once again, attempting to derail a thread with the same issue despite being given clear mod instructions not to do so on multiple occasions.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123251802#Comment_123251802

given that STEM courses have been equally available for girls/girls schools for decades now

https://www.irishtimes.com/special-reports/equality-diversity-and-inclusion/time-to-de-gender-stem-subject-choices-in-irish-schools-1.4703739

The I Wish’s 2021 Survey of Female Students’ Attitudes to Stem found that 55 per cent of girls interested in engineering did not have access to the subject

The study concluded it is time to rethink how Stem subjects are presented in schools with over three-quarters (78 per cent) of teenage girls saying lack of choices is a barrier to a career in Stem.

With the exception of biology and chemistry, female students are under-represented across the board in terms of Stem subjects.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/how-can-we-attract-more-girls-into-stem-1.4128790

Challenges also present in relation to schools’ capacity to provide a full range of Stem subject offerings, with boys more likely than girls to attend schools which offer a full complement of Stem subjects.

And from last October

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/1015/1475459-stem-gender-inequality/

According to the research, 68% of all-girls' schools offer STEM subjects beyond Maths and Science, compared to 87% in mixed schools and 96% in boys' schools.

donaghs

Here’s a blast from the past, Aoife was demanding mandatory hotel quarantine in 2021 for all people who arrived into Ireland - including Irish people returning from trips. (The first lockdown was March 2020).

https://x.com/aoifemcl/status/1352959999685910528

https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/start-hotel-quarantine-now?bucket=&source=twitter-share-button&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=myuplift&utm_source=twitter&share=8cc6d439-0643-44ab-93d7-621f6422e9f9

https://tortoiseshack.ie/93-a-strategy-for-covid-with-prof-aoife-mclysaght/

Lots of people travelled that year, after the initial worst case fears of 2020 subsided.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123294206#Comment_123294206

I think you need to;

You'll feel better, honestly. It was four years ago.

Palmach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123295284#Comment_123295284

I don't think we should let it go that the government science advisor has fundamentally illiberal views. Would she be appointed science advisor if she had said the whole thing was a gross over reaction and we locked down too often to the detriment of certain groups?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123425293#Comment_123425293

Have you any issues with how she's been doing her job since her appointment?

Palmach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123425739#Comment_123425739

No. And that is also a problem. I hear numerous scientists interviewed on the radio and TV. Never her. No idea what she does.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123425784#Comment_123425784

So just to be clear, you've no idea what she does, and that's somehow HER problem?

Do you think she advises government through radio and TV or maybe does she have a more direct route for delivering her advice?

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122713964#Comment_122713964

I actually think this is worse.

Nobody who was involved at a serious level with ISAG should be near a role involving public policy.

They showed absolute ignorance in areas of economics, history, geography and broader realities of public policy that people should have a basic comprehension of.

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122720070#Comment_122720070

I don't know if the ISAG YouTube videos still exist but many of their long form ones were mental. Their ideas around the border were absolutely crazy and they went further and further down the rabbit hole as people (only a small number really, they avoided a lot of scrutiny because there were Covid denier wack pack and also their "solutions" sounded nice a cuddly at first glance) scrutinised their nonsense. They somehow managed to get political support from the likes of Labour and Soc Dems and even (it is rumoured) our current Tánaiste.

It wasn't like their policy proposals were just a bunch of scientists saying Utopian things that might now have been thought through - they really really went down a rabbit hole.