Storytelling

One of the main reasons that Prescod-Weinstein wrote The Disordered Cosmos is to call attention to the fact that science and its history have largely been written by and about white men. She notes many points in which women, working-class people, people of color, disabled people, and otherwise disenfranchised people were excluded from working in science, but even more so, she wants to call attention to people whose contributions to the scientific process have been ignored. This includes people like Elmer Imes and the “hidden figures” of NASA’s computing program who worked as professional scientists, but were not written about in history books or given the awards and recognition Prescod-Weinstein believes they deserve. It also includes people whose names are not known at all, people like who do not fit the traditional Western definition of a scientist, like the indigenous people who shared their knowledge of plants...