> Skip to content
FEATURED:
  • Student Success Resource Center
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
ADVERTISEMENT
Research
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Show more sharing options
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Copy Link URLCopied!
  • Print

Feeling Under Siege by Trump, Scientists Plot Their Response

By  Paul Basken
February 20, 2017
Boston
Members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science are wrestling with how to push back when presidential actions are not in the interest of science. On Sunday, as the group met in Boston, several hundred scientists joined a “Stand Up for Science” rally just down the street in Copley Square.
Steven Senne, AP Images
Members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science are wrestling with how to push back when presidential actions are not in the interest of science. On Sunday, as the group met in Boston, several hundred scientists joined a “Stand Up for Science” rally just down the street in Copley Square.

The nation’s biggest general scientific society convened its annual gathering this weekend, and quickly became preoccupied by the political challenge to science posed by the month-old Trump administration.

In both formal talks and side activities, researchers and other members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science pondered what factors led to Donald Trump’s electoral victory, what it would mean for their jobs, and what if anything they should do to push back.

We’re sorry. Something went wrong.

We are unable to fully display the content of this page.

The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. Please make sure your computer, VPN, or network allows javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net.

Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, or subscribe.

If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com

Members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science are wrestling with how to push back when presidential actions are not in the interest of science. On Sunday, as the group met in Boston, several hundred scientists joined a “Stand Up for Science” rally just down the street in Copley Square.
Steven Senne, AP Images
Members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science are wrestling with how to push back when presidential actions are not in the interest of science. On Sunday, as the group met in Boston, several hundred scientists joined a “Stand Up for Science” rally just down the street in Copley Square.

The nation’s biggest general scientific society convened its annual gathering this weekend, and quickly became preoccupied by the political challenge to science posed by the month-old Trump administration.

In both formal talks and side activities, researchers and other members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science pondered what factors led to Donald Trump’s electoral victory, what it would mean for their jobs, and what if anything they should do to push back.

The anxiety was evident even in the hallways of the AAAS conclave, where one session on “Defending Science and Scientific Integrity in the Age of Trump” left a thick line of disappointed attendees unable to squeeze into the conference room.

Inside, John P. Holdren, the chief White House science adviser throughout the Obama administration, urged researchers to get more politically active. “Don’t be discouraged or intimidated” by the Trump presidency, said Mr. Holdren, who has returned to his job as a professor of environmental policy at Harvard University.

His wariness reflected a list of actions and comments by President Trump that scientists see as threatening them and their work. Those actions include Mr. Trump’s threats to expel foreigners, whom scientists see as major contributors to the nation’s intellectual strength; his appointment of administration officials who have rejected scientific understanding of the climate and the environment; and his own statements questioning established medical positions, such as the safety of vaccines.

ADVERTISEMENT

The prospect of needing to engage more deeply in the nation’s political drama has left many scientists uneasy. A key question concerns the March for Science, set for April 22 in Washington and other U.S. cities. The AAAS is among the scientific groups still weighing how to approach the planned protest, concerned both by the Trump administration and by the risk of making scientists appear as just another political special interest.

The message that Americans ultimately get from the April demonstration may be unknowable for scientists until the day it occurs, Mr. Holdren warned his colleagues, when people hear the specific words spoken from the podium and see the signs held by the crowd.

The scientists got a preview of that Sunday when some of their colleagues organized a “Stand Up for Science” rally just down the street from the convention, filling Copley Square with a few hundred boisterous protesters. Some of the hand-held signs were arguably nonpartisan — “We Love Science” and “Got Polio? No? Thank Science.” But most took clear aim at Mr. Trump, such as: “Evidence, Not Propaganda,” “Make America Smart Again,” and “Keep Your Tiny Hands Off Our Data.”

One of the speakers at the Copley protest, Naomi Oreskes, a professor of the history of science at Harvard, acknowledged that some of her colleagues from the AAAS gathering did not want to join her, wary of appearing political. But she was defiant, repeating the theme of her Friday night keynote message to AAAS, in which she said good scientists have no choice. Any researcher discovering something that threatens powerful political or financial interests will get dragged into combat, whether they seek it or not, Ms. Oreskes said. “Laying low will not protect you from attack,” she said. “Not if you do important work.”

The AAAS conference also had sessions aimed at solutions. They included panels of researchers studying the effects of computer automation on job losses, which some researchers see as a key factor in the economic anxieties that helped fuel Mr. Trump’s candidacy. But the solutions they identified were more political than technical, such as figuring ways of better distributing the economic rewards that flow to society from the automation.

ADVERTISEMENT

Laying low will not protect you from attack. Not if you do important work.

And as AAAS members have been told repeatedly at past conferences, better communications skills could help. Bart Gordon, a former Democratic member of Congress from Tennessee who served as chairman of the House science committee, told one panel that he understands the threat posed by climate change but never used that term in public discussions. Instead, said Mr. Gordon, who is now a partner at the Washington law firm K&L Gates, he takes care to describe for people the need to pursue “energy independence.”

Such advice reflects the well-known propensity for people to reject facts that don’t comport with their political views. As such, scientists were repeatedly warned during the conference that they can’t expect to change minds simply by restating those facts.

Instead, scientists should think more about human emotions and ways of framing presentations, said David Mair, chief science policy adviser to the European Commission. But, Mr. Mair said, “This is very difficult and makes scientists feel very uncomfortable.”

That point was emphasized in the conference’s final keynote address by S. James Gates Jr., a professor of physics at the University of Maryland who served in the Obama administration as a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Mr. Gates said he’s been embarrassed by colleagues who go to Capitol Hill seeking funding for research and behave as supplicants, assuming little need to consider competing political priorities. Among the wider public, he said, scientists are regarded as Sheldon Lee Cooper, the stereotypical nerd university physicist in the television program Big Bang Theory, who is highly intelligent but demonstrates no empathy or tolerance for others.

ADVERTISEMENT

“There is a vacuum, and Sheldon fills that vacuum,” Mr. Gates said. “As a group, we have not figured out how to tell our own story to the American public.”

Paul Basken covers university research and its intersection with government policy. He can be found on Twitter @pbasken, or reached by email at paul.basken@chronicle.com.

A version of this article appeared in the March 3, 2017, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Scholarship & Research
Paul Basken
Paul Basken was a government policy and science reporter with The Chronicle of Higher Education, where he won an annual National Press Club award for exclusives.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Content

  • Battle-Hardened Climate Scientist Braces for Trump Era
  • Court Rebukes Trump’s Travel Ban, and Harm to Universities Plays a Key Role
  • Freeze on Federal Activities Gives Scientists a Chill
  • Awaiting Trump, Scientists Are Caught Between Hope and Fear
  • Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
    Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
  • The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
    The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
    Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
  • Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
    Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2023 The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin