Science Badly Needs Defending Right Now. It Doesn’t Need Your Belief.

4 comments

1. >Some of this was predictable. Trump has made no secret of his hatred of immigrants, and certain areas of research—from climate change to racial disparities in health care to vaccines—have been stigmatized as “woke” in MAGA quarters. But it’s stunning that priorities like diabetes and pediatric cancer—hardly culture-war land mines—have been equally crushed by Republicans’ cost-cutting rampage.

   >How did we get here? “Trump” is the correct one-word answer, but it’s also true that over the last decade and a half, liberal exhortations to “believe in science” have not helped. The implication is that if you don’t believe in it, you’re stupid. Trust the experts. Trust Harvard. It should surprise no one that this was not a winning line of argument. 

2. I strongly recommend not just calling your congressmember and Senators, but showing up at one of the [No Kings Rallies](https://nokings.org) on Saturday June 14.

3. it always annoyed me that people say they believe in science. Like it is some kind of belief system…

   Science is just a method for finding the truth.

   To discover empirical data. Nothing more…

4. The problem is that, sometimes, science doesn’t give us the answers that we want. People don’t like that.

   As much as we wanted Earth to be center of the universe, it isn’t. As much as we wanted the orbits to be circular, they’re elliptical. As much as we want prayer (or rigorous exercise and kale) to cure all ills, it doesn’t. As much as we want to be able to burn fossil fuels to sate all our wants, we can’t. People want to be validated more than they want to be informed; people don’t want to be told that they have to change their ways; *people don’t want to have to bend the knee to reality.* But as much as we bang our heads against the wall, it’s still there, still following its own rules.

   I recall a [parable](https://youtu.be/v8mJr4c66bs) about a water puddle…

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