Scientists March Against Trump’s War On Science

Scientists celebrated Earth Day by marching in support of science. The New York Times reports:

Thousands of scientists and their supporters, feeling increasingly threatened by the policies of President Trump, gathered in Washington on Saturday under rainy skies for what they called the March for Science, abandoning a tradition of keeping the sciences out of politics and calling on the public to stand up for scientific enterprise.

Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician who helped expose lead poisoning in Flint, Mich., and who addressed a rally before the march, called the protest the beginning of a movement to ensure that governments do not dismiss or deny science.

“If we want to prevent future Flints, we need to embrace what we’ve learned and how far we’ve come in terms of science and technology,” Dr. Hanna-Attisha said in an interview…

Its organizers were motivated by Mr. Trump, who as a presidential candidate disparaged climate change as a hoax and cast suspicions on the safety of vaccines.

Their resolve deepened, they said, when the president appointed cabinet members who seemed hostile to the sciences. He also proposed a budget with severe cuts for agencies like the National Institutes of Health — which would lose 18 percent of its funding in his blueprint — and the Environmental Protection Agency, which faces a 31 percent budget cut and the elimination of a quarter of the agency’s 15,000 employees.

Bill Nye spoke at one rally in Washington, D.C.:

“Without scientifically literate citizens, the United States — any country, in fact — cannot compete on the world stage,” Bill Nye the Science Guy told a cheering crowd at the March for Science in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. “Yet today we have a great many lawmakers — not just here, but around the world — deliberately ignoring and actively suppressing science. Their inclination is misguided, and in no one’s best interest.”

Nye touted the ways scientific discoveries have improved global quality of life, arguing that science is not merely “purview of a different, or special, type of citizen.” “Our numbers here today show the world that science is for all,” he said, and government must come to recognize that “science serves every one of us.”

I am happy to see them protesting, but it sure is pathetic that it is necessary to protest in support of science. The importance of science should be accepted by anyone elected to the presidency in the 21st century.

 

8 Comments

  1. 1
    David Duff says:

    "Climate change"!  What climate change?

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    Anyone who uses science to interpret facts (as opposed to following conservative ideology and propaganda from the petroleum industry) would know the answer to that question.

  3. 3
    David Duff says:

    Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.12 C per decade

    That's from satellite readings which are not subject to, er, 'modelling' by so-called scientists!

    +0.12C per decade, crikey, we'll all fry tomorrow!

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    Wrong. You can’t go by the right wing propaganda. We are already having problems due to the warming so far, and it is expected to get significantly worse in the 2020’s.

  5. 5
    David Duff says:

    Do you mean the satellites are wrong? Or is it just that you want the likes of Michael Mann to, er, 'model' them!

  6. 6
    Ron Chusid says:

    You really need to give up the right wing propaganda.

    On the bogus satellite claims: https://www.skepticalscience.com/satellite-measurements-warming-troposphere.htm

  7. 7
    David Duff says:

    "As part of an ongoing joint project between UAH, NOAA and NASA, Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer, an ESSC principal scientist, use data gathered by advanced microwave sounding units on NOAA and NASA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth. This includes remote desert, ocean and rain forest areas where reliable climate data are not otherwise available.

    The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level. Once the monthly temperature data are collected and processed, they are placed in a “public” computer file for immediate access by atmospheric scientists in the U.S. and abroad.
    Neither Christy nor Spencer receives any research support or funding from oil, coal or industrial companies or organizations, or from any private or special interest groups. All of their climate research funding comes from federal and state grants or contracts."

    But if you really, really prefer Michael Mann, so be it!

     

  8. 8
    Ron Chusid says:

    I prefer to go with the views of virtally every climate scientist, as opposed to going with right wing ideologues and the petroleum industry as you do.

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