Later this week I hope to publish a detailed statement highlighting the rise of strong Antiscience aggression in America, how it first amplified here in Texas, and its curious historical ties first to the Soviet Union and now Putin’s Russia nytimes.com/2021/01/24/wor…
It’s a complicated thread, but I hope it stimulates the beginnings of some type of response to the growing Antiscience forces now targeting scientists in the US. Until now, the major strategy has been to ignore it so as to avoid “giving it oxygen” but I feel we’re now beyond that
Combating Antiscience is not exactly what I planned on doing in this new decade, but throughout my career I’ve tried to focus my science policy to fill critical gaps: neglected diseases globally, diseases of poverty in US, R&D for NTDs, the antivaccine movement....and now this
It’s also interesting how #Texas is front and center of so many of these issues, poverty-related diseases in the US and the origins of the modern antivaccine and Antiscience movement. I’m well positioned. Vulnerable but well positioned.
The Texas roots in American Antiscience also makes it harder to get the attention of the federal government and national media which is still very Acela Corridor and LA/Bay Area focused. Never fully appreciated that until I relocated from Yale and Wash DC to Texas a decade ago
I think this is a reason we’re always reacting to situations in this new decade. All the signs are there but unless it’s sitting there waving 👋 at you at 30th Street Station Philadelphia, it goes ignored. Speaking metaphorically, etc
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