Adam Savage is Joining the March for Science!

6 thoughts on “Adam Savage is Joining the March for Science!”

1. Great! Glad to hear that Adam will be participating!

   Unfortunately I will not be attending the local Boston march, but will be contributing in another way on that weekend… Presenting collaborative work at a natural history conference with many other scientists in the environmental sector!

   Hopefully these marches will send a message to our government, that policy should based on peer-reviewed data and journals from the professionals in each field. These professionals have spent countless years studying and becoming experts.. whereas politicians are experts in law (occasionally) and getting votes.

   Support your local march!

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2. awesome

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3. I am a research engineer in an NIH funded lab that studies hearing. This is probably my last year in science. The outlook is so bad that many of us are leaving for the private sector. I am trying to make it back to Boston for the march but I really wish more people would understand how we got here. While I am very unhappy with the current administration, I would like everyone to know this is just the last phase of something that started a long time ago.

   What this administration is trying to do, others have simply done in less obvious and more gradual ways. The funding for basic science via NIH has been in constant decline for a long time. It was a cause for celebration a few years back when the NIH managed to have a budget that actually kept up with inflation. I know from talking with people in other labs (including friends who work in climate research) that this is not a problem unique to the NIH.

   Unfortunately, many people do not understand that long-term funding is imperative for the advancement of science. They need to realize that basic science is not like the Mythbusters, where you get your answer in the end of a 45 min time slot (no offense). It takes time: getting undergraduate degrees, finding a PI (Primary Investigator)/Professor, securing funding, and then spending years to make a modest amount of progress, and with more people doing the same to verify the research. No one would undertake that if they didn’t think they could get funding for at least the 6 or 7 years it often takes to get a Phd. Once more no corporation would fund this work. It took decades and tens of millions of dollars to go from realizing it was possible to stimulate the cochlea to the first cochlear implants of the 1970s and the first real wearable ones (the size of a VHS tape) in the 1980’s. Even today, they still cost around $50K a piece. Do you think anyone in the private sector would have funded this? Even if they did, it would be an instant monopoly – not just on the devices but on the whole concept. What we are really fighting for is objective truth and the future of the resources intellectual and physical that should belong to us all.

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4. Thank you Adam Savage, Kristin Lomasney, Tested, and Marchers for Science! I’ve been surprised by the number of people I’ve been coming across who haven’t even heard that the March is a thing! Hoping that will change in course and momentum as April 22 gets closer! Fist bump to all helping spread the word and IMPORTANCE of spreading the word! — Artists creating in support of the March for Science https://jfortuneart.wordpress.com/rise-up – With you from Portland, Oregon – Jen Rombach

   

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5. Howdy. Please don’t misunderstand me. I respect the work you do, and I’m a fan of science. But in the interest of providing another perspective, here’s a disagreement with what you wrote. First, by framing this as an issue of “pro-science” vs. “anti-science” the “March for Science” side is starting off on the wrong foot. As you state in your write up, this is really a money issue. The kind of science the NIH is funding has become too expensive in the eyes of the people who are paying the money. And people are paying for it – if you think a private corporation can’t see the value in investing lots of money for potential results years and years from now, consider how the average tax payer feels.

   While the work you do is laudable, there are also plenty of stories of flat out waste, fraud, or stupidity coming out of federally funded experiments. When the average tax payer hears that scientists spent millions of dollars to discover whether or not a dog faces magnetic north before taking a dump, the average tax pay gets angry. I understand that some stupid examples don’t negate the whole, but the scientific community in general never makes any public effort to “clean up the mess” but rather circles the wagons and says “it’s fund us all for everything or you must hate science and want the world to melt.” Can you see how that’s not convincing to the average tax payer? Marching in the streets will do little to persuade the folks who are already skeptical of the scientific community.

   Scientists, also, have not done themselves any favors by 1.) spouting off publicly about political issues and candidates and 2.) excitingly backing partisan politics who proclaim themselves spokesman for a scientific cause (i.e. Al Gore). I’ve said more than enough on this topic elsewhere, but suffice it to say there is the suspicion that scientists enjoy playing politics, and that when they play politics they get tax money. It looks less and less like a noble endeavor for objective truth and more and more like a scam to the average tax payer.

   And I do not wish you any ill – may you find yourself always employed in meaningful work. However, a goodly portion of the average American tax payer has either been unemployed, underemployed, or working multiple jobs for decades. It’s been rougher in some places than others, but in general it has not been a great time for employment. So scientists Marching because they don’t want to lose their government grants otherwise they might have to go find work in the private sector doesn’t come across as convincing to the average tax payer. Peter Venkman’s line comes to mind, “Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve WORKED in the private sector. They expect results.”

   I write this because I honestly believe there is a huge blind spot in the scientific community. Folks like Adam Savage are only encouraging a position of antagonism in what I fear is going to turn into a complete collapse of the support structure for the scientific world. You think it’s bad now? After the scientists go ahead and go all the way into hyper-partisan politics it’s going to be far worse than most folks realize. They’ll look back at today and wistfully remember the “salad days” of science.

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6. While it’s a pretty picture I can’t help but be amused by how unscientific the March for Science seal is. A melting globe? I’ll grant you some degree of artistic license, but not even the most dire of global warming scenarios posits the earth actually melting. And a dinosaur? A creature that went extinct millions upon millions of years ago? Not the best symbol. Why not make it classy? – pull in a statue of Athena? That’s a MUCH better symbol and doesn’t remind one of 5 year old boys playing with rubber toys.

   Also, the March is about getting government money. Nobody (not even Trump) is saying scientific journals should be burned or peer-reviewed papers should be outlawed. He may have put some rules down regarding federal agencies, but then those are federal agencies and actually fully within his control (and isn’t that frustrating? Maybe the entire system needs to be reconsidered rather than violent attempts being made to restore it?). So, rather than frame this as a “He wants us to be silent but we won’t be silent” battle, why not put it in context that could at least be justified. Something like “Scientific Progress Must Keep Marching On” (that’s admittedly not that catchy, but I think that’s a better direction – the silence thing is a non-starter).

   Scientists may be smart at science, but they’ve got miles to go before they understand marketing and branding! They need to spend more time with Elon Musk and Bezos.

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