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Why We Marched for Science
Why We Marched for Science
By: Alan MacRobert | April 25, 2017
An S&T editor, and his biologist partner, decide where to make a stand, and why.
“OBJECTIVE REALITY EXISTS.” It was a protest sign that I never imagined I would carry on a crowded all-night bus to Washington, DC. ... But there I was holding it high with my wife Abby Hafer, an evolutionary biologist and book author, amid a vast, rain-drenched, enthusiastic crowd by the Washington Monument. We listened to speaker after speaker boomingly declare, in many different ways, essentially the message on my sign.
“The very idea of evidence, and logic, and reason, is being threatened by individuals and interests with the power to do real harm,” declared Cara Santa Maria, host of the Talk Nerdy science podcast. Bill Nye, television’s “Science Guy” and head of The Planetary Society, roused the crowd probably more than anyone. “Today we have a great many lawmakers — not just here, but around the world — who are deliberately ignoring and actively suppressing science. Their inclination is misguided. ... Our lawmakers must know and accept that science serves every one of us. Science must shape policy. Science brings out the best in us. With an informed, optimistic view of the future, together, we can — dare I say it — save the world.”
The message behind this unprecedented event, and its 610 sister marches planned around the globe, seemed surreal in its obviousness. An actual, real physical world, which scientists investigate in all their careful ways, exists and works by physical laws unrelated to human wishes, demands, opinions, politics, doctrines, or beliefs. This real physical world is unswayed by wishful thinking, pleas from the distressed, bafflegab from deniers, threats and decrees from the powerful, or anything else to do with humanity’s say-so. It humbles humanity. Yet because of the natural world’s very consistency, we can investigate and understand it reliably, in ever widening breadth and detail and marvelousness — and deduce its deep, undergirding principles. And then put them to practical use.
....
Abby and I came to a resolution. America, the world’s quintessential scientific nation for most of the last century — and the quintessential practical nation since its founding — will not be driven into ignorance and disgrace without a whole lot of us putting up a hell of a fight. We passed the building where the Declaration of Independence is displayed, and we agreed: this is a cause to which we could “pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” It has begun.
By: Alan MacRobert | April 25, 2017
An S&T editor, and his biologist partner, decide where to make a stand, and why.
“OBJECTIVE REALITY EXISTS.” It was a protest sign that I never imagined I would carry on a crowded all-night bus to Washington, DC. ... But there I was holding it high with my wife Abby Hafer, an evolutionary biologist and book author, amid a vast, rain-drenched, enthusiastic crowd by the Washington Monument. We listened to speaker after speaker boomingly declare, in many different ways, essentially the message on my sign.
“The very idea of evidence, and logic, and reason, is being threatened by individuals and interests with the power to do real harm,” declared Cara Santa Maria, host of the Talk Nerdy science podcast. Bill Nye, television’s “Science Guy” and head of The Planetary Society, roused the crowd probably more than anyone. “Today we have a great many lawmakers — not just here, but around the world — who are deliberately ignoring and actively suppressing science. Their inclination is misguided. ... Our lawmakers must know and accept that science serves every one of us. Science must shape policy. Science brings out the best in us. With an informed, optimistic view of the future, together, we can — dare I say it — save the world.”
The message behind this unprecedented event, and its 610 sister marches planned around the globe, seemed surreal in its obviousness. An actual, real physical world, which scientists investigate in all their careful ways, exists and works by physical laws unrelated to human wishes, demands, opinions, politics, doctrines, or beliefs. This real physical world is unswayed by wishful thinking, pleas from the distressed, bafflegab from deniers, threats and decrees from the powerful, or anything else to do with humanity’s say-so. It humbles humanity. Yet because of the natural world’s very consistency, we can investigate and understand it reliably, in ever widening breadth and detail and marvelousness — and deduce its deep, undergirding principles. And then put them to practical use.
....
Abby and I came to a resolution. America, the world’s quintessential scientific nation for most of the last century — and the quintessential practical nation since its founding — will not be driven into ignorance and disgrace without a whole lot of us putting up a hell of a fight. We passed the building where the Declaration of Independence is displayed, and we agreed: this is a cause to which we could “pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” It has begun.
