As a member of the faculty, I wrote this piece for our comparative religion and humanities department at Cal State Chico, and it seemed worth posting here too.
September 2017 post-script to this article, which I'll post here and is thus more of a "prescript" than a "postscript." It appears that the positive words toward science that Trump presented are not panning out. Read this article for a few examples.
September 2017 post-script to this article, which I'll post here and is thus more of a "prescript" than a "postscript." It appears that the positive words toward science that Trump presented are not panning out. Read this article for a few examples.
This fall, ScientificAmerican posed Twenty Questions to the four presidential candidates on their scientific knowledge. And now that the election is decided, these answers either represent
opportunities missed or promises to be fulfilled.
Naturally,
the answers fell into some predictable patterns: Jill Stein leaned toward
enthusiasm about science, but concerns about environmental issues. Gary Johnson
celebrated science and believed the free market has the best means for directing
the future of science. This was mirrored in many ways by Donald Trump, although
he sometimes offered much shorter answers that stuck to key emphases of his
campaign. Hillary Clinton presented the most lengthy responses and sought to
counterpoise government regulation and investment alongside private
entrepreneurship. (Since I’m also interested in religion and science, it’s
worth noting that, of the four, Clinton is the most articulate about, and
committed to, her faith—in this case, Methodist.)
With
twenty issues and fifty pages of text, it’s only possible to highlight a couple
of issues and focus on Trump as President-elect with the other three, and
particularly Clinton, as foils. (Incidentally, there were some unusual topics
included in “questions about science” such as opioids and immigration. This was
a wide-ranging set of issues!) Concerned that government investment into
scientific research is only about 1% of the national budget, Trump talked about
the need for scientific innovation without mentioning investment of public
funds, while Clinton asserted that funding science would be a high priority for
her administration. Johnson leaned toward removing restrictions for private
enterprise, while Stein believed that global climate change is our country’s
biggest scientific concern. Notably—though climate change has support by the
vast majority of scientists—only U. S. Republicans, out of every major party in
the developed world, believe it is contested scientifically. Trump could only
speak of “climate change” in quotation marks and moved quickly, when asked
about it, to discuss clean water. Finally, I found all candidates’ comments on “Scientific
Integrity” supportive of science and scientists. Trump made a clear
declaration,
“Science is science and facts are facts. My administration will ensure that there will be total transparency and accountability without political bias.”
(I heard scientists nodding in agreement in the background
with a hope those words come true in his administration.) Clinton comments were
surprisingly similar here: “I am deeply concerned by the recent increase in
partisan political efforts to interfere in science.”
It
seems to me that, in order to move forward, we need a robust commitment
to scientific advancement while respecting our deeply religious country. Naturally,
I can only offer this provisional report, but I will close with the hope that a
commitment to the best of religion and science will be in our country’s future.
