Michael
Eisen, an evolutionary biologist, is among the elite of American
scientists, with a tenured position at the University of California,
Berkeley, and generous funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
for his research on fruit flies.
But late last month, dismayed over the Trump administration’s apparent disdain for evidence on climate change and other issues, Dr. Eisen registered the Twitter handle @SenatorPhD
and declared his intention to run in the 2018 election for a seat in
the United States Senate from California. His campaign slogan: “Liberty,
Equality, Reality.”
“I’m
not sure I’m the best vehicle for this,” said Dr. Eisen, whose
professional attire consists of shorts and T-shirts bearing mottos
supporting open access to scientific literature, a cause he has
championed. “But if we want to defend the role of science in policy
making, scientists need to run for office.”
Since
Mr. Trump’s election, many other scientists have expressed concern
about rumors and public statements on the new administration’s views on
science, climate change and the role of federal offices like the Environmental Protection Agency.
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Mr.
Trump has called climate change a hoax (although more recently said he
would have an “open mind” about it) and appointed some officials to his
transition team who dispute mainstream climate science. But there is
much that is still unclear about his administration’s attitudes toward
science.
The president has yet to appoint a science adviser and has not responded to open letters
calling on him to do so from science policy groups including the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (whose president,
Rush D. Holt, is a physicist and former congressman).
Few
scientists have gone as far as Dr. Eisen, but other researchers are now
undergoing a political awakening, contemplating what their role should
be for at least the next few years.
“There are many conversations going on right now,” said Naomi Oreskes,
a historian of science at Harvard who spoke at one of the first
scientist-led anti-Trump protests, a rally in San Francisco during the
annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December. “Many
scientists do feel that the time for sitting on the sidelines is past.”
A political action committee that seeks to get more scientists and engineers to run for elective office, 314 Action,
has seen a surge of interest in its programs, with more than 2,000
people registering at its website. The group is planning a training
program for scientist-candidates, whether they want to run for local or
state offices or Congress.
Other scientists have organized demonstrations — including a march now set for Washington on Earth Day,
April 22 — submitted letters or opinion articles to news organizations
or joined efforts to preserve government data that they fear may
otherwise disappear. Individuals and groups have also spoken out against
Mr. Trump’s executive order restricting travel for citizens of Iran,
Iraq and five other countries, an action that has affected some
researchers.
But an activist role is not an easy fit for many scientists.
“I have plenty of colleagues who say, ‘Leave me alone in my lab,’” said Jonathan Overpeck,
director of the Institute for the Environment at the University of
Arizona. Still, he has seen more scientists take at least the first
steps toward becoming mobilized.
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“Right
now it’s mostly talking about what to do,” Dr. Overpeck said. “We’re
scientists — we tend to plan very carefully what we do and then we try
to do it well. But certainly there’s an elevated sense that this is very
real.”
That
sense has motivated hundreds of student and faculty volunteers at
nearly a dozen universities to participate in “data rescue” events over
the last two months, the most recent of which was held this weekend at
New York University. After a brief training session, participants spent
six hours archiving environmental data from government websites,
including those of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration
and the Interior Department.
An
anonymous donor has provided storage on Amazon servers, and the
information can be searched from a website at the University of
Pennsylvania called Data Refuge.
Though the Federal Records Act theoretically protects government data
from deletion, scientists who rely on it say would rather be safe than
sorry.
“For
a problem like climate change, you can’t understand it if you don’t
have data,” said Jerome Whitington, an environmental anthropologist and
member of the loose-knit group Environmental Data Governance Initiative, which sponsored the N.Y.U. event.
Much
of the concern among scientists has been centered on the E.P.A., which
was a favorite target of Mr. Trump during the campaign. Comments by
members of his transition team have led to speculation that the new
administration would gut the agency’s science staff.
Although
he said he was speaking only for himself, Myron Ebell, who headed the
E.P.A. transition but left on Jan. 19, said in a recent interview that
science within the agency had become too politicized.
“I’m a great believer in science,” Mr. Ebell said, “but I’m not a great believer in politicized science.”
Many
scientists would argue that it is climate deniers and others who are
politicized. The question of whether scientists should take sides
politically is an old one, with the widespread and long-held view among
many researchers that they should be quiet and let their data speak for
itself.
Some
scientists have objected to plans for the Washington march, arguing
that the event will feed the view among many conservatives that
scientists have a political agenda.
But
the idea that they should be above the fray has been slowly unraveling
as researchers realize that their own aloofness may largely be to blame
for public disregard for the evidence on issues like climate change or
vaccine safety. And in the era of Trump, some say it could finally come
completely apart.
“I think that many people have moved well beyond that,” said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy
at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is enlisting scientists to
monitor what is occurring in federal agencies. “It’s nonsense — you need
to follow your own heart. You can do science and still be a good
citizen.”
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Youth
is leading the way in rejecting the old view, Mr. Rosenberg said.
“Early career scientists, younger scientists — that’s not an answer for
them,” he said.
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein,
a cosmologist and particle physicist at the University of Washington,
is one of those younger researchers. She has long been politically
active — she comes from a family of organizers and attended her first
demonstration when she was 2 months old — but for her the talk and
actions of the Trump administration have led to a new level of concern.
Dr.
Prescod-Weinstein said she was especially incensed by what she and
others viewed as efforts by some science organizations to reach out to
the Trump administration.
Immediately after the election, she took to social media to criticize a news release from the American Physical Society that urged President Trump to strengthen scientific leadership and quoted his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
“What
history has taught us is that collaboration doesn’t work for science,”
Dr. Prescod-Weinstein said. “When we work with extremist, racist,
Islamophobic or nationalist governments, it doesn’t work for science.”
The news release was quickly withdrawn and the society apologized for any “offense it might have caused.”
Michael Lubell, a physics professor
who was director of public affairs for the society but who was
terminated without explanation, said that “initially people were very
worried that if anybody criticized Donald Trump there would be
retribution.”
“People
are now getting to the point where they are understanding that this is a
guy in the White House who doesn’t have a firm grasp on science policy
at all,” Dr. Lubell said. “Now they are mobilizing. But there’s
absolutely no strategy.”
Dr.
Eisen, the Berkeley biologist, would seem to have slim chances of
winning a race for the Senate, since it is sure to be joined by several
prominent Democrats if Dianne Feinstein, the longtime incumbent, decides
not to run.
But Jacquelyn Gill,
a paleo-ecologist at the University of Maine’s Climate Change
Institute, has been actively recruited to — eventually — make a bid for a
congressional seat by 314 Action, ever since she was quoted in the
journal Nature urging her fellow scientists to “do more than write
letters.” Staff members at 314 Action (which takes its name from the
number pi) liked her attitude, and she happens to live in a swing
district.
Like
many academic scientists, Dr. Gill employs several graduate students in
her laboratory and has received grant funds for research that is still
in progress. But the idea of public service, at what she considers an
urgent time for climate science, is tugging at her.
“I
came into this career wanting to do science that’s in the public good,”
she said. “And maybe now that means something different than it did
before.”
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