On 22 April, many researchers across the world will engage in their first overt political act, marching in protest at US president Donald Trump鈥檚 anti-science stance. The prospect has created fierce debate over the question of how politically active scientists should be.
To understand why this question is even being asked and why it might be , you have to grasp the nature of the , one that blossomed in the relatively recent era of state-funded research.
This era began in earnest after the second world war, when governments realised that whoever had the best scientists would win the next war. The deal is this: scientists (in the West, at least) are largely allowed to get on with their work undisturbed, talk about it with the public if they want (most don鈥檛) and get paid reasonably well for it, sometimes in permanent, unassailable employment. In return, some results of this effort should enhance national security and create wealth and jobs.
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Part of the pact was that, as Winston Churchill put it, scientists 鈥渟hould be on tap, but not on top鈥�. That is, they should not get involved in political decision-making or seek control over their outputs. Most have tacitly agreed, content to be part of a system that allows them to quietly indulge their innate curiosity while earning a decent living. Polymath Jacob Bronowski described this perfectly: scientists, he said, became 鈥渢he monk of our age, timid, thwarted, anxious to be asked to help鈥�.
Science became seen as a lofty, untainted quest for knowledge. Even if beneath the surface it was not really like this 鈥� as historian Steven Shapin pointed out in his Never Pure 鈥� 聽the monastic image endured.
Marching monks
Embedded in society for decades now 鈥� but at arm鈥檚 length and always struggling for credibility and authority 鈥� science is trusted to deliver something that no one can quite define, through workers who place themselves in (often intimidating) buildings that most people would never choose to visit. It occupies a somewhat remote cultural niche, a situation that has long suited everyone involved.
Trump has changed that. The appointment of those who pay no heed to the discoveries of science; the dismissal of climate change findings and their removal from public view; the gagging of government researchers; the planned dismantling of the US Environmental Protection Agency 鈥� all these things send a message that there is now less space for science. The terms and conditions of the pact have changed. Hence the outrage, and the call for the timid monks (who were never really that timid) to leave their cloisters and march.
So back to that opening question: should scientists get political? Researchers have perhaps been naive in their assumption that, whatever the compromises, they ultimately exist to serve the public good. In reality, they serve government ends. But government ends and the public good have generally been aligned. Something has snapped because, in the last few weeks, science has been subverted, or sidelined, to serve business interests, religious inclinations and personal ideologies.
Trump has broken the tacit agreement politicians made with science all those decades ago. The isn鈥檛 about politics, climate change or even science in general. It is really about the public good. If you want to go, you should.
