Defending Science

A March for Science is being planned for April 22, 2017 -- Earth Day. Initial messaging suggested it would be a "Scientist's March on Washington" which provoked some reactions like this one from scientists who like to see their work as apolitical.

It is a common attitude among scientists that their work is apolitical and has inherent value. They believe that reasoned dialog will lead to common understanding, because reality is on their side. They are wrong. This is a war between Romanticist and Enlightenment paradigms which are incommensurable.

It is fundamentally political to use data, rather than dogma, to make decisions.

It is fundamentally political to use reason to persuade, rather than fear to compel.

Unless we advocate for and demonstrate the importance of science, we can lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the vast majority of the people in the United States who are inclined to see both enlightenment and romance thinking as equivalent ways to make sense of reality.

If we lose the battle, the United States will plunge into a new dark age. You don't need to look farther back than the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia to understand what the shape of such a dark age can look like. The reality of a 9-mm brain hemorrhage is no less a reality than any other.

We should march. We must march. The stakes have never been higher. This is the moment for which every educated person was educated. Education, reason, and dialog must be defended vigorously. We must not fail to recognize the existential threat that faces us and assume that reason will carry the day.