Today, appropriately on Earth Day, is the March for Science on the Boston Common, from 1pm to 4pm. It includes a star-studded cast of speakers, including MA’s own Gina McCarthy, former EPA head.
Would that this were not necessary! Science, of course, should not be partisan; it should be the basis on which political arguments are held. But scientists did not choose this fight. Science — the search for facts — is indeed under attack: Look at the attempted dismantling of the EPA by Scott Pruitt; the House Committee for Science’s attacks on climate scientists; Trump’s budget with its draconian cuts for science research (very bad for MA, incidentally); and his flirtation with anti-vaxxers. They’re going after weather satellites — because the satellites are telling them things they don’t want to hear.
That is crushing, weapons-grade stupidity, stubbornness and ignorance. These will go down in history with Lysenkoism, the Five-Year Plans, Great Leap Forward and other triumphs of inhumane ideology over observed facts.
The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) December 13, 2016
For whatever comes of the demonstrations, I’d like to humbly suggest the following goals/agenda for the scientific community in the public/political sphere:
- Encourage the teaching of logic and critical thinking, at every level of education — from elementary school to post-doc. People ought to know p’s and q’s of logic, and how to identify pseudo-logic, how we are bewildered into accepting false or unproven things. Nigel Warburton’s Thinking from A to Z is a good anti-derp vaccine, to recognize logical fallacies. Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos series was a terrific introduction not only to scientific discoveries, but the scientific process — hypothesis, testing, reproducibility, peer-review, etc. — by which such discoveries are made.
- Define “pure” science as a search for facts and knowledge, not merely as an economic driver. We start heading into some ugly directions when science is only deemed “useful” if it makes someone money. In our rush to be practical and competitive, we teach facts — but little about how such facts are derived.
- Defend the federal government as a reliable, neutral source of facts and information — and fund such sources. From fish stocks to global temperatures to unemployment statistics, the government provides the public with useful data upon which momentous decisions are made. Such research must be left absolutely professional, transparent, and non-partisan. Heretofore, it largely has been. But at any given time we are neck-deep in corporate propaganda, political and regulatory capture. We must absolutely hold that government research is on behalf of the greater public good. They work for us.
- Relatedly, support federal funding for scientific research outside the government: Grants to universities from NIH, NSF, etc. Obvs.
- Defend scientists from politicized attacks. Particularly I have climate scientists in mind, of course; but they have been the canaries in a coal mine (as it were) in confronting vastly powerful monied interests. The plain facts came up against the fossil industry’s billions, and the industry has tried to corral the facts using politics.
- Defend academic tenure. See above. Defense from political attacks is one reason why tenure exists; it has been severely weakened at the University of Wisconsin, once one of the jewels of higher public education in the US.
I’m sure the organizers chose Earth Day for a reason: That climate science is an urgent topic for the public; and — not coincidentally — threatened with political retribution and silencing.
It is indeed a small world, quite finite, and quite fragile, as it turns out. And CO2 concentration has passed the mark of 410 parts per million, which hasn’t happened in 3 million years. Everything that we care about, that we have ever cared about — everything! — is at grave risk.
From here you can see that our Earth is rare, shared and beautiful. My first spacewalk, 16 yrs ago today #EarthDay We’re in this together. pic.twitter.com/LlcZY9mknX
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) April 22, 2017
jconway says
I was shocked to visit MIT at the height of the 2008 primary and see how apathetic my friends dormmates were. These were the engineers and researchers of tomorrow and they were completely apathetic about voting, let alone, getting involved in the hot primary. I had to explain how climate, teaching evolution, and the very neutrality they cited was under assault from the religious right and business aligned think tanks.
It’s heartening to see some of those same faces eagerly gearing up for the march today. There is no safety in the sidelines. This is a fight for reality based approaches to policy informed by scientific consensus. The very non-partisanship of science is what makes it a threat to partisans on the right who have politicized science. Only by engaging in the political realm can science reassert itself.
johntmay says
75% of all new drugs are discovered by the government of the USA. The Internet was imagined, developed, and made possible by the government of the USA. Every part of technology that makes a Smart Phone Smart was developed by the government of the USA. The AIDS virus was discovered by a scientist working for the government of the USA.
I’m sick and tired of right wing idiots and their biggest idiot in the White House attacking my government as a bureaucratic parasite on the public sector. If anything, especially in our high tech fields and pharmaceuticals, it’s quite the reverse.
I urge you all to read this book and get armed with facts to battle those ignorant Republicans: The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths.