{"id":976,"date":"2011-03-23T13:52:43","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T13:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/?p=976"},"modified":"2012-10-13T19:06:54","modified_gmt":"2012-10-13T19:06:54","slug":"onions-and-unconscious-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2011\/03\/23\/onions-and-unconscious-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"Onions and Unconscious Bias"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have written before<\/a> about my work on carrots, and it’s also the case that I have published on onions, in rather the same spirit as the carrot work: an environmental scanning electron microscopy study of onion failure, as well as a thorough study of maintaining viability of onion cells in the electron microscope under different conditions of imaging. They are a lovely system to work with because it is rather easy to get a sample a single cell thick \u2013 that layer just inside the skin that slips off so easily when slicing onions.<\/p>\n

However, I am no expert in the field of onion science, so I was slightly surprised to receive an email recently beginning<\/p>\n

We have learned of your published research on onions. We would like to invite your participation in our publishing program. In particular, I have in mind a new research or review article for an edited collection (invitation only) being assembled under my overall direction tentatively entitled<\/p>\n

Onion Consumption and Health<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I am ashamed to admit my first reaction was to laugh. The acceptable reason for laughter would be self-mockery, the amusement that someone thought I was expert enough about onions to write a review article, particularly as relating to consumption and health (neither topics which featured in my papers). However, I suspect there was another underlying stimulus for my laughter, the feeling that a monograph on onions was not serious. It is too easy to think that food is not an important subject for scientific study, but I ought to know better myself for the very reason that I have spent many years researching different aspects of food. I always used to get very irritated when others were baffled why I thought, as a physicist, this was appropriate behaviour. So why did I fall into exactly the same trap this time?<\/p>\n

The health-giving properties of onions are no laughing matter, because onions are rather good for us. They contain flavonols, a class of polyphenols; epidemiological studies on polyphenols in general have shown that they can protect against vascular dysfunction, promote vascular health and reduce cardiovascular disease risk. Basically, as far as I understand it, eating onions, like drinking red wine (though possibly less enjoyably) allows us to ingest anti-oxidants which give us some protection against cell damage. So, a monograph on onion consumption and health should be of interest to many. My erstwhile onion-collaborators at the Institute of Food Research<\/a> are interested in the health benefits, but also in understanding how to use them as a link in the creation of a sustainable food chain<\/a>. One example of this is to find novel uses of waste products from standard routes of food-processing. This could, for instance, include onion skins and other plant-based organic waste co-products (including used brewers\u2019 grain). The aim is to turn this into added value products, maybe food, animal feed or pharmaceutical products and ingredients in the form of biopolymers, phytochemicals, nutrients and micronutrients.<\/p>\n

All this shows us not only that onions are good for us, but scientists are additionally interested in how their inedible bits could be put to good use and not just thrown away. So why did I fall into the trap of laughing at that email? I\u2019m afraid it was because I can follow the herd instinct when not concentrating and, momentarily, think that a physicist should work on \u2018real\u2019materials like silicon or buckyballs.<\/p>\n

UK readers who watch Have I Got News for You will be familiar with the \u2018missing words round\u2019 from some \u2018guest publication\u2019 at the end of the show, when some specialist publication is implicitly sneered at for its minority interest: Worm Digest Magazine or the Concrete Canoe Magazine would fit right in there. But it\u2019s unconscious bias that makes us do the sneering. One person\u2019s serious scientific project is another\u2019s butt of a joke. Unconscious bias, as I\u2019ve mentioned before<\/a> in the context of gender, means we make assumptions without realising it. It is all too frequently at work, and if you don\u2019t believe it visit the Project Implicit<\/a> website and take one of their Implicit Association Tests \u2013 you\u2019ll almost certainly be taken aback by the outcomes.<\/p>\n

So did you laugh at the idea of Worm Digest Magazine? Their website claims<\/p>\n

We are working together in a global context to disseminate earthworm information in a responsible way. We want to spearhead action in the world regarding earthworms that has genuine impact on the environment and issues of technology, scientific research, business, agriculture, literature and education.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or what about The Concrete Canoe Magazine? Again, referring to the website we find<\/p>\n

The concrete canoe competition is a wonderful project for all students in civil engineering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And<\/p>\n

Concrete Canoe Magazine (CCM) has for main objective to allow students involved in the concrete canoe project to have a magazine dedicated to their beloved project in which they can find relevant information on new techniques and breakthroughs made by different teams or individuals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[sic, it\u2019s not from an English-speaking university]
\nSo the former magazine appears to be seriously environmental in its goals, the latter an educational resource for engineering students.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid Onion Consumption and Nutrition would fit the same mould, looking \u2018daft\u2019 but actually really serious. From time to time we should all reflect on whether we are being led astray to sneer at, mark down or turn away from something that is not within our normal comfort zone but about which we really shouldn\u2019t be making such judgements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have written before about my work on carrots, and it’s also the case that I have published on onions, in rather the same spirit as the carrot work: an environmental scanning electron microscopy study of onion failure, as well … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,5],"tags":[249,209,973],"class_list":["post-976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interdisciplinary-science","category-science-culture","tag-institute-of-food-research","tag-publication","tag-unconscious-bias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}