1/8 What a disgrace. We are in a crisis and one thing that is sorely missing from the Trump Administration is an understanding of... Science.
2/8 We need science. And we need leaders that believe in it. If we are going to confront our challenges, from the immediate, like coronavirus, to the existential, like climate change, we need science.
3/8 Science isn't something you can just turn on, like a faucet. It's an ethos, a way of thinking. It's not just knowledge, but how we as a species accrue insight.
4/8 It's not just about applications, it's about the basic understanding of life and our universe that allows us to find answers where we once didn't know even to ask the question.
5/8 Science is not perfect, and those who perform it are, like the rest of us, human. We should strive to make science more inclusive, less driven by profit-making decisions, and more expansive.
6/8 What it boils down to is a way of viewing our surroundings. Do we succumb to superstition and bias? Or do we question our assumptions, and ourselves?
7/8 Listening to the administration, and seeing their actions, we find men and women who are hostile to the very ideals that make progress possible. We see expertise denigrated and uncomfortable observations dismissed as "fake news."
8/8 This is gravely dangerous, to our health and our planet. And yet, science perseveres. I believe it will thrive in one way or another. But if America is to remain a leader in science, and all that it provides, it desperately needs different leadership.
