WHEN I first started recruiting for a scientists’ march on Washington DC in early 2017, it seemed like an uphill battle. I was just a researcher without money, connections or crowd-pulling charisma, moved to action by the election of Donald Trump, a powerful climate change denier and anti-vaxxer, as US president.
Of course, science was already beset with human problems. Research funding had been declining and although people often said they loved science, they would then say how acupuncture had “cured” their back pain, or produce a salad of words like “quantum” and “consciousness” with no regard to physics or neuroscience. Science was well loved, but much abused and rarely understood. I felt nearly alone, facing a world of fantasists, believers and deniers.
Advertisement
That feeling turned out to be wrong. Thanks to thousands of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of protesters, the Washington event became the March for Science, the largest public science education event in history. It extended to cities around the world and saw more than 1 million people participate.
It is hard to quantify its impact. But a year later, more scientists than ever have run for political office. There are new expos and outreach projects. Sound science seems to be entering the cultural lexicon as a virtue, like honesty or hard work. More people are aware of science denial and more are taking on leadership roles in science education and advocacy. And science advocates are poised to rally again. The second March for Science is on 14 April. There are good reasons for a repeat.
Abuse and misunderstanding of science persists. Anti-vaccine attitudes were partly to blame for a quadrupling of measles cases in Europe in 2017. Last year, the US president abandoned the Paris Agreement on climate change. Staff at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were advised not to use terms such as “science-based”. Government sites have had their climate change data erased. Science adviser positions have been left vacant or eliminated.
Science itself has no end point – it will never know all there is to be known. Likewise, building a society that appropriately understands, values and uses science is unlikely to have a fixed end. If the problems we hope to address still exist, we must carry on attempting to find new ways of solving them.
Since I first started work on the 2017 march, I have come to realise I am not alone in desiring a society that appreciates science. Every science activist, no matter how lacking in funds or connections, can experiment to fulfil that desire. Some of those experiments will work.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Keep marching”
