This past weekend, over 600 cities worldwide hosted Marches for Science. Based on initial estimates of combined attendance of the events, hundreds of thousands of people attended the Marches. I had the honor of speaking at the Boston March, which was well attended despite poor weather.
While the organizers and proponents of the event have staunchly maintained that the Marches were intended to be nonpartisan and apolitical, there is no question that the impetus for these Marches was the current administration’s selection of cabinet level officers (e.g., at EPA and HHS) and policy positions (e.g., on NIH funding, climate change, vaccination, and environmental protection).
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
This unquestionable association with partisan politics had the unfortunate consequence of keeping many companies and their leaders from the biotechnology industry from participating in the Marches for fear of backlash from the Administration and a desire to “save their powder” to fight for tax reform, FDA reform, repatriation of trapped off-shore cash, and attractive drug pricing. More disturbingly, I spoke with leaders of major laboratories at Harvard Medical School who had to agree with the decision of foreign-born graduate students and post-docs in their labs to opt out for fear of being photographed and targeted for deportation. This is unfortunate because biotechnology owes its existence to advances in fundamental, basic science.
Our industry’s role in society is to transform the revolution in the life sciences into innovative new medicines to address unmet human needs and to save and improve the quality of human life worldwide. Without strong support for the sciences, our quest to transform basic research into meaningful new medicines will wither and die.
But, beyond that, the leadership of the biotechnology industry has a much deeper set of reasons to raise our voices in opposition to anti-science rhetoric and policies.
Modern scientific inquiry is founded on grounding principles among which is the belief that the quality of the data, not the economic, political, religious, or physical power of their proponent, should determine their authority. We share a conception of standards of evidence and argumentation for the existence of a fact. This conception of scientific inquiry does not admit so much as the concept of an alternative fact, much less the existence of one.
Perhaps not so obviously however, intrinsically bound up with this conception of rational, scientific discourse, are the ideals of equality of participation and justice. As citizens, we all have an obligation to contribute to the conditions that enable the creation of a community of open discourse involving everyone with something to contribute — regardless of skin color, ethnicity, religious belief, country of origin, gender, or sexual orientation. Excluding any voice from that community on such a basis is repugnant to the rationality that undergirds the scientific endeavor. It is the moral equivalent of excluding data that potentially contravene conventional belief. That community of open, reasoned discourse is essential to the quest for truth as best we can know it, whether in science or society.
These scientific and societal ideals are threads woven together in a glorious tapestry. Pull out one thread and the whole begins to unravel.
Conversely, anti-science views, such as those espoused by some on creationism, vaccination, and climate change, are equally bound up with expressions of misogyny, racism, religious intolerance, and other shameful bigotries.
Anti-science rests on the authority of the powerful, not open rational discourse, to carry the day. Bigotry is about the systematic exclusion from the discourse of a subset of those with rationally and respectfully held competing views.
This, too, is a tapestry of intertwined threads. Do not think it possible to approve, or even quietly disapprove of but countenance, one without thereby endorsing the other.
Thus, the modern biotechnology enterprise is an industry with noble origins not just in science but also in the advancement of the social preconditions necessary for an open society and polity to flourish. These dual ideals are the bedrock on which biotechnology is built. They compel us as an industry to lift our voice in unwavering support: for the advancement of science, yes, but also for the freedom of all with something to contribute to participate in the discourse.
If the March served the purpose of alerting the current Administration to the existence of a large and influential community of supporters of science, we can only hope that this will create an opening for a constructive dialogue between Administrative officials and the leaders of biotechnology and research and medical institutions.
Photo: wellphoto, Getty Images
