Taking the Scientific Method to the Streets: Chicago March for Science planned for Earth day 2017

I'd argue that one of the biggest reasons science is denied or attacked in politics today is because it's not public facing enough. Government and corporate officials that do everything in their power to discredit science and make sure real and important regulations never get put in place, do so cause they can get away with it. The American people put these officials (at least on the government side) into power. The only people that can truly influence their actions at the end of the day are their voters. Of course large donors/lobbyists can influence their decisions, but if they don't have the support of their voters, they won't get reelected. The more scientific findings that can be publicized, and the more facts and information that can be presented, the better. It's unfortunate that it's come to it, but science has become a partisan issue, but a lot of it is caused by misinformation coming from those that aren't actually within the scientific community. The author is right that scientist aren't known enough by the public. I think the more public facing we can get scientist, to show the public that these people aren't crazy, but in fact highly intelligent experts in their field, the better. Also to show that science (the non-private industry science) is done for public benefit, not for personal interests and gain, and certainly not for partisan reasons.

I do see where the author is coming from though, and I know he has far more experience than myself with dealing with the public and elected/corporate officials. These marches can be successful if we work to avoid insulting a large number of people, and instead encourage others' inclusion and calmly lay out real-life effects and show how we as a collective society will suffer if we don't unite, and how we can succeed if we do. The author is absolutely right that we do not need an anti-trump or Trump administration march. Whether we like it or not, Trump is the president and nearly half of the voters wanted him. We need positive pro-something marches. Keep it positive and push to hit a common ground and common goals.

That's why the goal of the march is to stay non-partisan (to the best of its ability), and promote the roots of science/the scientific method (full mission statement). If more support can be grown for the foundation of science, then eventually it can shift to try and take on actual issues within politics.

/r/chicago Thread Parent