By Henry I. Miller, Alex Berezow @ Fox News
In Washington and cities around the country last weekend,
events labeled The March for Science should have been labeled The March Against
Trump. Few Republicans were invited and marchers carried signs that urged
“Resist” and other anti-Trump slogans.
One
Last year, the March for Science was almost entirely about politics – or as one writer noted, “a primal scream” against President Trump. After receiving much criticism for being scientifically shallow, callow, and blatantly partisan last year, this year’s March for Science was supposed to be more sophisticated.
It wasn’t.
Despite the fact that the march’swebsite correctly says that “science does not belong to any political party,” Democrats usurped control of marches around the nation. In fact, according to the Seattle Times, marches weren’t just about science – they included totally unrelated issues such as indigenous rights and national politics. Congresswoman Jayapal called EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “a corrupt, greedy Cabinet secretary” who should be fired. She also declared: “Science is what allows us to all be better off.”
That latter statement is certainly true, but Jayapal seems strangely hesitant to answer any questions about it. One of us (Dr. Berezow) is her constituent and submitted a request to her office, inquiring about her position on issues ranging from mandatory vaccination and alternative medicine to genetic engineering and nuclear power. It went unanswered.
Jayapal’s dedication to science apparently does not extend to answering questions about scientific issues from actual scientists living in her district. Partisanship aside, do the marchers actually have a point?
One headline in Wired read: “As Scientists March, Federal Researchers Weather Trump Storm.” Is it true that President Trump and congressional Republicans are at war with science? If they are, they have a funny way of showing it. In Washington, nothing speaks as loudly as money. And the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Trump last month contained massive increases in government funding for scientific research – the largest in a decade.
As reported in the journal Science, the budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was boosted to $37 billion – an 8.3 percent increase.
The budget agreement even contains language enabling
agencies to move
forward with research on the causes of gun violence, a cause
the March for Science leaders actually agree with, and one they lobby for on
their website.
But there was very little of that,
despite the fact that the massive increases in the federal science budget were
far beyond the most optimistic wish list that any science advocate could have
hoped for. Additionally, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recently
made a change to his department’s policy that will make it easier to bring
biotechnological products to the market.
What gives?
It’s clear that the March for Science was just a partisan
publicity stunt designed to bash the GOP and President Trump. In the long run,
that will undermine science. If Republicans believe that scientists and other
self-described science advocates are just a partisan wolf in sheep’s clothing,
Republicans will ignore them.
Alex Berezow, a Ph.D. microbiologist, is senior fellow of
biomedical science at the American Council on Science and Health and was the
founding editor of RealClearScience.
Henry I. Miller, a physician, molecular biologist and
former flu virus researcher, is the Robert Wesson fellow in scientific
philosophy and public policy at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He
was the founding director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of
Biotechnology. Twitter: @henryimiller
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