Donald Trump doesn’t seem to care about much of anything but the sound of his own voice. You see, things like polls, evidence, truth and science are simply inconvenient if they don’t line up with his version of reality (Although I hear he likes graphs a lot). I find this to be alarming, to say the least. We are in some of the most perilous of times as a species, where science can either make or break our existence.
As massive flooding overtook Baton Rouge (500 year floods will become more common) and many continue to struggle to get the help they need, California burns. The signs are there, shall we say. The majority of scientists agree that the climate is changing and it’s impacting our lives.
And yet we have Trump.
He denies the polls, He denies he’s said things. He denies the science of climate change, so much so that he’s dared to say it’s a conspiracy theory. He has threatened to undo the Paris Climate agreement. He probably would question the color of the sky if it contradicted something he’d said the day before.
And yet, a magazine that usually stays out of politics, feels it’s time to say something:
Scientific American is not in the business of endorsing political candidates. But we do take a stand for science—the most reliable path to objective knowledge the world has seen—and the Enlightenment values that gave rise to it. For more than 170 years we have documented, for better and for worse, the rise of science and technology and their impact on the nation and the world. We have strived to assert in our reporting, writing and editing the principle that decision making in the sphere of public policy should accept the conclusions that evidence, gathered in the spirit and with the methods of science, tells us to be true.
“Gathered in the spirit and with the methods of science”. Do you hear that Donald? This goes for pollsters too? They pride themselves on being objective, in fact, certain polling entities stake their reputations on this. It matters. Just because you may lose by a YUGE amount does not mean it was rigged.
This is why the fact that a publication like Scientific American is coming out in such a manner is so very IMPORTANT. They understand the impact this election will have for many years to come. We cannot afford an anti-science candidate, and that is exactly what Trump is.
The current presidential race, however, is something special. It takes antiscience to previously unexplored terrain. When the major Republican candidate for president has tweeted that global warming is a Chinese plot, threatens to dismantle a climate agreement 20 years in the making and to eliminate an agency that enforces clean air and water regulations, and speaks passionately about a link between vaccines and autism that was utterly discredited years ago, we can only hope that there is nowhere to go but up.
In October, as we did four years previously, we will assemble answers from the campaigns of the Democratic and Republican nominees on the public policy questions that touch on science, technology and public health and then publish them online. We will support ScienceDebate.org's efforts to persuade moderators to ask important science-related questions during the presidential debates. We encourage the nation's political leaders to demonstrate a respect for scientific truths in word and deed. And we urge the people who vote to hold them to that standard.
This is important.
We cannot afford to put off dealing with Climate Change. We cannot afford to put of dealing with these realities.
We cannot afford a President that does not believe in the effectiveness and importance of vaccines. If you haven’t heard, we are dealing with a new health threat called Zika (I heard a heart wrenching piece about a local NPR reporter covering the Zika outbreak in a small neighborhood in Florida. She’s 3 months pregnant) and we will face more and more viruses as Climate Change rages on. Climate Change is not just about the “weather”. It’s about health issues, water issues, housing, infrastructure, food, national security. Need I continue?
We cannot afford a President Trump.
I believe in science. We need a President that does too.