Philadelphia, PA

Dear Gomez-Molina,

Good question. 

I think you are essentially right that scientific research, the freedom of inquiry and of reports of inquiry, needs political protection. Since scientific research always involves the prospect of turning up something unpleasant for various vested interests and established belief, it needs to be protected against extraneous interference. Scientific research contributes to the search for truth, and the truth is best protected by open debate. The public has an interest in open debate and contestation of  the results of research; and although the public is not always going to be in a position to contribute to research, the educated public is capable to getting a fair grasp of what is going on --or even of what may be going on behind the scenes. 

I am reminded of the famous case of Galileo who defended the Copernican cosmology and who was forced to recant and held under house arrest after charges of heresy were brought against him. As I understand the matter, this was at a time when the church had become thoroughly politicized. With all due respect for legitimate authority and expertise, I would say that no established authority can be reasonably trusted to be judge, jury and executioner in its own case. 

To make of political protection a matter of trading favors, would, of course, defeat the purpose. 

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Gomez-Molina,

Good question. 

I think you are essentially right that scientific research, the freedom of inquiry and of reports of inquiry, needs political protection. Since scientific research always involves the prospect of turning up something unpleasant for various vested interests and established belief, it needs to be protected against extraneous interference. Scientific research contributes to the search for truth, and the truth is best protected by open debate. The public has an interest in open debate and contestation of  the results of research; and although the public is not always going to be in a position to contribute to research, the educated public is capable to getting a fair grasp of what is going on --or even of what may be going on behind the scenes. 

I am reminded of the famous case of Galileo who defended the Copernican cosmology and who was forced to recant and held under house arrest after charges of heresy were brought against him. As I understand the matter, this was at a time when the church had become thoroughly politicized. With all due respect for legitimate authority and expertise, I would say that no established authority can be reasonably trusted to be judge, jury and executioner in its own case. 

To make of political protection a matter of trading favors, would, of course, defeat the purpose. 

H.G. Callaway

Dear Juan,

The march for science is not political but imperative for any society to solve problems, to survive and flourish. We do not involve in science just for the methodology which you said it politics of it but for its unparalleled capacity to solve problems. Humankind faces challenges from nature and from our own makings, that demand direct intervention of science, such as controlling pandemics caused by unknown pathogens, curing diseases that are caused by known pathogens,  better living and elongating life through medications, creating artificial nature in places where favorable nature disappeared because of human unwise utilization of natural resources, finding true reasons as to why our socio - economic and political issues fail periodically and to search rectifying solutions.

What transforms mankind is not political but scientific, the creation of knowledge and thereby the advancement of science and technology. Those societies who stay away from the advancement of science and technology always stay behind  those who accelerate in creating scientific knowledge, advance in  science and technology. What the politics should do is to let its citizens think, create and innovate  freely, and willingness to offer resources. 

Regards,

Dejenie A. Lakew

There's no doubt that any march for science is a political act. It is an act of advocacy for a normative position, and therefore political. The question then is whether it is defensible within the socio-political context that we, as scientists, find ourselves.

I haven't yet decided whether I will participate or not. On the one hand I am appalled by the ongoing dismemberment of the scientific establishment, the political and media fabrication of supposed factual information, as well as the concurrent scientisation of politics and policy by all parties (including some scientists) - whereby politics is disguised by the choice of, and proxy debates over, alternative sets of facts and their interpretation. On this basis, I believe we desperately need to recalibrate our democratic values to understand the valid roles for experts and robust evidence in policy debate.

On the other hand, the scientific establishment is failing on its own terms, to produce the sorts of knowledge long expected of it, as well as to behave in apolitical and disinterested ways. In some respects, this failure is a product of the sorts of challenges facing a globalised humanity, whereby policy problems tend toward intractable uncertainty, complexity and polarising politics. In this context we see that many scientists are ignorant of, or disregard, the epistemic values of good scientific practice as established over the 20th Century by RK Merton and others. We see this most pointedly in climate science debates where establishment scientists actively engage in political advocacy with the defense of scientific consensus, conflate the empirical with the normative, doctor or fail to disclose data, engage in ad hominem attack, and even blatantly lie for political purposes in their capacity as public experts (https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/852611407875014656).

More worrying even than these failures, perhaps, is that scientists appear to assume that politicians and the public should necessarily heed their invocation to: "Trust me, I'm a scientist". This sort of arrogance is one of the reasons why science is failing to be impactful. More than ever before this is not a defensible position for scientists to hold, as the recent Brussels Declaration also agreed (https://tinyurl.com/l58gvuw). Scientists must be able to not only tell the public what they know, but must also be able to show how they know what they know, and to be completely transparent in the subjective/normative choices they inevitably make in the course of their data gathering, assimilation, interpretation and presentation. Part of the academy's failure in this regard, I believe, has to do with scientists' poor training; they often simply do not recognise the distinction between a purely technical decision (whereby any subjective choices are circumscribed by established methodological standards) and a technical decision with a normative foundation (where subjective decisions can have political implications). Irregardless, if scientists cannot conduct themselves appropriately in line with established epistemic and liberal-democratic norms for expert authority over public decisions, and if, as their opponents strongly suspect, they fail to maintain their disinterested position in policy debates, then public demonstrations are likely to weaken their political influence further.

To confound matters, however, some branches of science are in the midst of a reproducibility crisis which calls into question the factual basis of whole tranches of scientific knowledge. This (as well as the problems described above) has occurred due to ongoing and increasing incentives placed on all working academics to game the system in order to survive, and to maintain secrecy in their conduct which is contrary to the epistemic ideals of communalism and universalism. These difficulties have arisen, I believe, from a failure by governments to protect the academy from market influences that treat students as customers, and academics as competitors judged on the basis of their prolificity. What we need are protections for the academy from market forces and partisan interests that would ensure that science is conducted in more epistemically-healthy ways, and this is one reason why we should march...

However, I am hesitant to partake, because I believe that the march is likely to be framed incorrectly by many involved in order to align with scientistic sentiments that amount to little more than progressive politics by another name.

For some this appears to be very political.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/March_for_Science-should_we_all_go/2

     These opinions here are very important.  Thank you all for that!

     I am not an expert in many issues. I do not have enough scientific bases to write now about the environment, political science or sociology of science. 

     Perhaps the best two political issues that we should accept –not as scientists this time but as human beings- are in the first core principle of the march of science:

             1.“Science that serves the common good. (…).

              2. We must protect the rights of every person to engage with, learn from, and help shape science, free from manipulation by special interests”,

      ...see https://www.marchforscience.com/mission-and-vision/ 

     We should improve the legislation to stimulate and protect all human scientific activities –not just the activities of scientists- to make them serve the common good of all the known living beings.

     This could be a first, practical, step. 

     These might be the more important principles of an international ethics for a global science...if we involve more political issues, they can divide us.

     Local nations or individuals that embrace these principles should have our support… 

The government should support the science that full-time-scientists do. It is more important now, however, to stimulate and protect the right everyone has to do science “free from manipulation of special interest”.  We then agree with Professor Callaway.  “Science that serves the common good” should be protected and stimulated. 

Many people do not want more support because some of the current supports are not completely free of special interest.  They are not always serving the common good. So, in order to obtain more support, we need first to improve how science is done currently... In relation to the opinion of Professors Lakew and Tangney, we need to minimize the political positions in science in order to have a more global agreement in the fundamental, minimalistic polices of science.

There is a rich body of literature examining natural population fluctuations on a temporal scale and the anthropogenic impact. Worth taking a look at: 1) Roemmich, D, McGowan J. 1995. Climatic warming and the decline of zooplankton in the California Current. Science. 267:1324-1326. 10.1126/science.267.5202.1324 Abstract 2) Baumgartner, T.R., Soutar, A. & Ferreira-Bartrina, V., 1992: Reconstruction of the history of the Pacific sardine and northern anchovy populations over the past two millennia from sediments of the Santa Barbara basin, California. California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries (CalCOFI) Investigations Report33, 24–40. http://www.calcofi.org/publications/calcofireports/v33/Vol_33_Baumgartner_etal.pdf.[Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]

3)http://www.nature.com/news/2003/030110/full/news030106-13.html

4) Chavez, F. P., Ryan, J., Lluch-Cota, S.E. & �'iquen, M. From anchovies to sardines and back: multidecadal change in the Pacific Ocean. Science, 299, 217 - 221, (2003). | Article | ISI | ChemPort |

5)http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ref/10.1080/11035897.2013.773066?scroll=top

March for Science - should we all go? - Page 2. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/March_for_Science-should_we_all_go [accessed Apr 23, 2017].

Thank you Dr. Ricoy for the literature you have presented about this topic.

     In order to decrease the bias of current research (in environmental science, vaccines, clinical trials and health issues) we need to make science more democratic: citizen science is a solution...but this citizen science should be directed not only by established researchers in academy or industry but by citizens without any conflict of interest with grants, universities, industries, governments or any other non-scientific interest.

     This form of work can be called "independent citizen science".

     Without this democratic participation, any scientific consensus about climate change or health issue is a "premature consensus". To reach a complete, more integral and unbias consensus we need the participation of experts with knowledge but also of common citizens with a naive an unbias attitude- even if they do not have all the required knowledge. A fair attitude is sometimes more important for the common good than knowledge.

Citizen Science Day is April 14-2018. Independent research (now called "community-oriented citizen science") has a very important role to play in discussing social issues in science, neurotechnologies and climate change...This type of research complements conventional research and reduces potential biases in the debate, by introducing diversity of independent actors in the process of measurement, interpretation and consensus of the scientific method. Independent research should be more appreciated by society, government, institutions, peer-review system and, specially, the conventional scientists themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_scientist

Poster Walking and breathing illustrates network principles of coup...