Picture of six participants of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. This image is believed to be in the public domain and is from the National Archives.
However, the bias isn’t confined to the past; it permeates the present. Take, for instance, the oversight in the development of automatic hand dryers that failed to accommodate individuals with darker skin — a stark reminder that even technological advancements can be tinged with inadvertent bias.
To grapple with this issue, we must confront the question: How does this historical bias continue to influence the creation of knowledge in science today?