My Recent Takeaways

I love to read and to share what I’m learning with others, so look here to find my takeaways from books and articles I’ve read recently. Topics will rotate among data, equity, and history.

Wow, I wish I had known this history to share with my chemistry students!
April 30, 2023

I’ve been traveling a lot in April, and one thing I do while traveling is read history. As a child growing up in a Manhattan Project town, World War II has always fascinated me, especially the scientists. Kean focuses on the work of Allied armies to sabotage Nazi scientific war efforts while Jacobsen focuses on the late war and post war effort to bring German (and Nazi) scientists to the United States.
Both authors use details from characters’ personal and professional lives to show the complexity of World War II and its impact on individuals. When I taught high school chemistry, I always tried to make the scientists more approachable. I wish I had known this history to share with my students. We could have talked about the importance of ethics in science.
Inhumanity in the name of progress, scientific or otherwise, is unacceptable. Falling back onto “the end justifies the means” doesn’t make the indefensible okay, it just provides a way to blur the edges of a decision we know, deep down, is wrong.
Kean, S. (2019). The Bastard Brigade.
Jacobsen, A. (2014). Operation Paperclip.