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Apocalypse 1948: Atomic Age Bitterness

Aldous Huxley’s Ape and Essence (1948)



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Don’t defend science by making people defend their religion or politics

In my latest Pacific Standard  column, I write about how to go about standing up for science in our highly polarized society. Two points are important:

First, the public, across the political spectrum has a remarkable amount of trust in scientists. (See my column for a link to the data.) This is amazing, because as a group, American scientists’ political affiliations match their demographic: city-dwelling people with post-college education are overwhelmingly liberal, including scientists. (And, full disclosure, including me.) And yet the majority of the public, including conservatives, see scientists as non-partisan. So let’s not squander that trust!

Second, science issues that we might think are highly polarized are either only polarized in America (e.g., conservatives in other countries accept climate change, most religions are fine with evolution), or not as polarized as you might think (e.g., opinions on GMOs and vaccines are not heavily split along political lines).

So as we go about trying to defend science in the Trump era, where highly ideological people like Scott Pruitt might be put in charge of important science agencies, let’s engage the public in a way that doesn’t force them to defend their political loyalties, as best we can. The worst thing that can happen to science (not to mention the planet) is for conservatives to believe climate change science is only a liberal thing, or for the far left to believe that support for vaccines is a conservative thing.

This doesn’t mean scientists should disengage from politics – just the opposite. We should take on politicians and actors in bad faith who undermine good science. But when we do so, we should make it clear that it’s about science, not partisanship.