Not only is the high-minded concept of science a partisan thing at this point, truth itself is a partisan thing.

Texas GOP Propose Bill Allowing Doctors to Lie to Pregnant Women to Prevent Abortions
https://trofire.com/2017/03/04/texas...ent-abortions/

Kellyanne Conway says Donald Trump’s team has ‘alternative facts.’ Which pretty much says it all.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.45b2159e1716

Spicer earns Four Pinocchios for false claims on inauguration crowd size
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.a1010953d918

Threatened by climate change, Florida reportedly bans term ‘climate change’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.991aae8eed8e

Wisconsin Republicans ban state official from answering emails about climate change
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/08/wisc...limate_change/

It shouldn't be, but how many examples do you need of "science" being manipulated to achieve some other goals? In theory this endeavor seems great. In practice, I'm extremely skeptical.

"whether we face a travel ban that restricts the free flow of scientific ideas, changes in education policy that diminish students' exposure to science, or budget cuts that restrict the availability of science for making policy decisions."

"We are actively partnering with and seeking advice from organizations and individuals with expertise in this area. We cannot ignore issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, xenophobia, or any other form of discrimination in the discussion and implementation of science. Nor can we ignore the ways in which science has been misused to harm marginalized communities."

You're advocating for facts/objectivity but you're trying to comingle it in areas that are inherently subjective. I think this path will only succeed in increasingly bringing issues from the scientific world and have them steered by political agendas. To me, this sounds like a bad idea. I like the underlying premise but cannot support this currently.

When the Republican party is openly opposed to science, science has to be a political position. It shouldn't be that way, but the Republican party is the one that needs to change, not the majority--not We the People.

This type of sentiment is precisely why I think this is such a bad idea.

Well, if TrumpTrain doesn't think scientists should oppose an openly anti-science Trump administration, I guess we should just pack it up.

Now there are over 500 cities world wide holding marches on Saturday.

The Aussies get it.

Why non-scientists need to join the March for Science

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/why-no...19-gvnnbl.html

No, science should not involve itself with politics and vice versa. They are antithetical.

L O L

Scientists in politics >>>>> reality show buffoons in politics

But seriously, that's a horrendous thought you had there.

You're a fool if you think you think any political group is going to take unbiased positions on scientific issues.

You must be fine with a Bush administration that distorted scientific analyses of federal agencies to bring results in line with his administrative policies or progressive groups that bolster feel-good fallacies to attack nuclear energy, vaccines, animal testing or genetically modified foods.

TT,

Politicians abusing science is bad but scientists acting politically to protect the truth (climate change is real) is an unfortunate but clearly necessary reaction. If politicians left science alone in the first place scientists wouldn't have to fight back.

Actually a pro-science approach would attack people who don't vaccinate their kids just as much as people who refuse to admit the evidence of global warming. That's the great thing about science, there's a process we can rely on and it's a damn good one.

Uh, no. We weren't fine with those things. We opposed those things. That is why we oppose Trump doing those things.

That's such an illogical post. How in the world does my saying science should be part of the political process imply that I'm fine with bad or anti-science positions?

People tend to instinctively use "politics" as a pejorative/derogatory term, but we really shouldn't. There's nothing at all unfortunate about scientists working in the political arena to protect the environment or vaccinate kids. OFC, no one complains about "politicized science" when Republicans put unqualified bozos I charge of NASA or the DoE. We should absolutely encourage sciencebros to get involved with public policy as much as possible.

I feel like in a perfect world scientists shouldn't be trying to influence public opinion they should just be presenting objective facts. Obviously we're pretty fsr from a perfect world

Like (and correct me when I inevitably turn out to be wrong) the scientific consensus is that sugar is pretty terrible and the cause of a lot of ailments. It would be a great improvement in health if sugar was banned but I like the taste of sugar and I'm willing to sacrifice some amount of health to keep tasting it. Scientists should be telling me how much health I'm sacrificing when I have a caramel shot in my latte (such a liberal) but the decision should be mine. Of course people seemingly can't be trusted to accept the consequences of their bad decisions or even understand that they exist so it's a tricky one.

You're pretty much wrong. Sugar, in moderation, is calories, and calories, in moderation, are essential to life and thus are a huge win. The problem with sugar is that it is very easy to consume in excess. What level of sugar consumption is detrimental provided you are otherwise eating at a caloric maintenance level and getting adequate levels of other essential micro and macro nutrients is not, I don't think, settled science.

Sugar is an easy target for people who want to eat better, though. For a random person who is eating ~3k calories/day when they should be eating 2500, it's highly likely you can find few-several hundred calories of sugar in their diet they could cut out pretty painlessly. Also, sugar is often found in things that otherwise have very little nutritional value, and while you need appreciable amounts of fat and protein to survive, you don't really need much sugar.

grunching a bit but science has never been free from politics, whether or not it has been ostensibly apolitical. I disagree with the idealization of science as "value-free", or as outside and above culture and politics. It sounds nice as an ideal, but given that it's impossible the ideal only ever serves to obscure how political science is. Even accepting on some level the objectivity of data, theories, or facts (i.e I am not a post-modernist :P), nevertheless there are always value judgments and cultural considerations involved in how theories are applied to observations (the theory-laden nature of observation), which questions to ask, which data to collect, and which kinds of categorizations to impose upon data after it's collected (cf. racial categories), and so on.

Because science is never really apolitical or value-neutral, there is also the problem that perpetuating the ideal only makes it easier for people to dismiss valuable scientific work as biased or "political". What makes science "science" isn't pure objectivity or value-neutrality, it's methodology.

um actually i'm fine with GMO foods and anybody else with half a brain is too

It sounded like Wookie was saying he opposed groups attacking GMO, not that he opposed GMO.

BUMP for SCIENCE!

This is looking to be the largest one day resistance event since the Women's March. There are over 500 satellite marches world wide, and almost certainly one near you. Go to one. It's more effective than arguing with this TrumpTroll clown.