Why I Stand Up for Science
Yesterday was the Stand Up for Science rally in Washington DC. Although I wasn’t there, I support this effort. There is currently a Republican War on Science. It’s in part Trump’s war, but it is not just his. It belongs to every Republican who supports Trump and his agenda. Part of the issue is cuts to science funding, but that is not the heart of the problem. The key is that Republicans are trying to attack the idea of how we know what is true. Truth is based on evidence. In science, we gather evidence, make hypotheses, and then test these hypotheses in experiments and observations. We base our conclusions on data. That idea is what is being rejected by Republicans.
For example, climate change. There is an enormous body of evidence indicating that the planet is warming, that this warming is caused by human activity, and that this warming represents a dire threat to humanity. Scientists look at this evidence and conclude we must change our behavior to avoid global warming. Yet, Trump claims that global warming is a hoax, he has withdrawn the United States from the Paris agreement which is the world’s best effort to oppose climate change, he mocks wind farms, and he requires government agencies to remove any mention of climate change from their websites. What he is essentially doing is drawing conclusions from a political point of view rather than from evidence. This is the opposite of science. This is one reason I believe there is a Republican War on Science.
Another example is vaccines. A giant body of evidence exists showing that vaccines are safe and effective. Many clinical studies have proved that vaccines do not cause autism. mRNA vaccines do not change your DNA. We are as certain about the safety of vaccines as we are about any scientific conclusion, because the evidence is so overwhelming. The current measles outbreak in Texas is one more piece of evidence that vaccine hesitancy is deadly, and is a sign of things to come. Yet, Trump placed a notorious vaccine-denier — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the National Institutes of Health, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration. Many Republican-controlled state legislatures are passing laws to ban certain types of vaccines. All this is dangerous for our citizens (especially our children). But the real problem is that Republicans, by opposing vaccines, are saying that evidence doesn’t matter. The are saying that truth is determined by their political beliefs rather than by clinical trials. They are waging a Republican War on Science.
There are other examples. Many Republicans reject evolution, which is based on such a mountain of data that nothing makes sense in biology without it. I hear Republicans claiming that cell phone electromagnetic radiation is dangerous, even though the evidence indicates that this is not true. The list goes on. The one thing all these beliefs have in common is that they are based on politics, or religion, or some other reason, and not on evidence.
I can understand that society must decide how to spend its resources, and that science is not necessarily a higher priority than other problems we face. But science has shown over and over that it is a driver of prosperity. Look at the health advances and the technological developments over the last century that have spawned new industries and markets. They are based on basic science. Science is an investment that produces gains for everyone. It is not support for a privileged few.
Finally, the Republican War on Science is characterized by a vilification of science and scientists. You can see this in the attacks on Anthony Fauci, a scientist who has made tremendous contributions to the fight against AIDS, Covid, and other infectious diseases. He is an American hero. Yet, Republicans treat him as a criminal. Thousands of young scientists are being fired at NIH, NSF, CDC, FDA, and other government agencies, not for cause and not to save money, but to attack science. The Republicans are rejecting the way scientists allocate resources through peer-review, a process to ensure only the best science is funded. Peer-review meetings have been canceled and the NIH peer-review system is being reorganized so the White House can exert more political control over it.
I stand up for science because I oppose the Republican War on Science. I can almost understand how one man — a ignorant man who does not know the difference between transgender and transgenic — might foolishly reject science. But how does an entire political party become opposed to science? How does it turn its back on evidence? How does it decide to reject the fundamental idea that evidence determines the truth? I don’t know. The Republican party has become the know-nothing party. Those who voted for the Republicans are supporting a War on Science that gets worse by the day. This is why I stand up for science.