A WEEK is a long time in politics. Science, however, is in it for the long haul. Whether planning for rising sea levels or isolating proteins in fruit fly nerve cells so that many years down the line we might have a new drug for Parkinson’s, it does not square with the day-to-day, fixed-term imperatives of government.
This produces obfuscations from some politicians. They back fracking ventures that quickly create jobs, but talk down long-term pollution. Others take credit for renewable energy progress, conveniently ignoring the decades of work to get there. The slow march of scientific progress does not match well with politics even on a good day. And today is not a good day.
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Preliminary budget outlines from US president Donald Trump have shocked the science community. Everything from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to NASA’s earth science missions would get a buzz cut. In a way this makes perfect sense.
The impulsivity and lack of long-term thinking that places science at odds with politics seems less a feature and more a tenet of Trump’s view. Why fund the NIH properly, helping to produce the medical advances of 2030, when you can’t see past your next tweet? If politics couldn’t handle science’s tortoise pace years ago, it should be no surprise to see this disdain reach a new peak in a faster-moving age.
On the bright side is the response of scientists and the public. That includes from thousands of , political action committees aimed at bringing expertise to government – and of course 22 April’s March for Science in Washington DC and other cities in the US and around the world.
The march, viewed one way, is a bit of a paradox. It is one day aimed at making people understand how unimportant one day actually is. Rather than having a specific bill or reform in mind, participants are simply trying to drum up greater appreciation for evidence, scientific rigour, methodology and expertise.
It is a march that calls attention to another march: that of slow, steady, incremental progress.
All the cuts Trump proposed would have an immediate effect – less spending by the government. But their long-term outcomes, be they delayed development of life-saving drugs or seas rising to swallow Miami, apparently don’t move the needle for any number of elected officials.
There is a chance such cuts will accelerate the pace of impacts until it becomes impossible to ignore them. Of course, some of the damage would be irreversible.
Whether the march can wake us all up before that happens remains to be seen.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Move to a different beat”
