Wishes for America at 300

 

We’re done celebrating America at 250. Now comes the question: What should we be able to celebrate when America turns 300?

In my new piece for The Hartford Courant, I argue that the next great civic advances should prioritize three goals:

• Protect political equality
• Treat education as civic infrastructure
• Ensure affordable, accessible healthcare

These are the next reasonable steps. By our 300th, we should be judged on whether Americans can participate fully and fairly in the life of the country.

The Founders Are Still Warning Us, 250 Years Later

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, we will hear tributes to the Founders and see politicians wrap themselves in the “Spirit of 1776.”

My new Hartford Courant opinion piece argues that we should stop treating the Founders as patriotic decoration and take their warnings about executive overreach, congressional weakness, and the use of public office for personal gain seriously.

American exceptionalism is best understood as a commitment to the restraint of power. That commitment is being tested.

Many who most loudly invoke the Founders are not preserving our inheritance. They are squandering it.

Brown Opened Doors, and Today’s Court Is Closing Them

On this day in 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously decided Brown v. Board of Education, declaring racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. It remains one of the Court’s most consequential decisions — not because it ended racism, inequality, or resistance to integration, but because it affirmed a principle the country had too often denied: separate is not equal.

The ruling was important enough to inspire a song. “Black and White,” written in 1954 by David I. Arkin and Earl Robinson, later became a major hit for Three Dog Night in 1972. But the group’s version omitted lyrics that directly celebrated the Court’s role:

“Their robes were black, their heads were white,

The schoolhouse doors were closed so tight,

Nine judges all set down their names,

To end the years and years of shame.”

Those lines captured a moment when the Supreme Court exercised its authority to expand freedom and strengthen the promise of equal citizenship. The Court did not solve America’s deepest problems. It did not end segregation on its own. Indeed, the backlash to Brown was fierce, sustained, and often successful. But the decision gave constitutional force to the idea that public institutions could not lawfully degrade children on account of race.

That is what makes today’s contrast so painful.

Instead of building on that legacy, the current Supreme Court’s conservative majority has too often moved in the opposite direction. In Shelby County v. Holder, the Court invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to new voting restrictions in several states. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion and leaving access subject to state law. Citizens United v. FEC helped unleash more outside money into American politics. Taken together, these decisions reflect not only legal reasoning but also a broader retreat from the spirit of inclusion and equality that Brown embodied.

The Court has also made it harder to challenge partisan gerrymandering in federal court, limited LGBTQ protections in public accommodations, made it harder to defend gun-safety laws, constrained environmental regulation, and expanded presidential immunity, all of which threaten basic democratic accountability. For example, after Shelby County, Texas and other states quickly implemented strict voter ID laws and reduced polling places, these measures disproportionately affected communities of color.

These are not isolated decisions. Proponents argue that the Court is restoring constitutional limits, protecting individual liberties, and correcting earlier judicial overreach. Critics see something very different: a broader legal and political project that shifts power away from voters, workers, consumers, people seeking health care, marginalized communities, and regulatory agencies — and toward corporations, wealthy interests, religious-liberty claimants, gun-rights advocates, and executive authority.

Reasonable people can disagree about constitutional interpretation. But we should not pretend the Court is merely calling balls and strikes. The judiciary is shaping the nation’s future as surely as Congress and the president. When the Court narrows voting rights, democracy suffers. When regulatory power weakens, public health and the environment suffer. When it removes protections people have relied on for generations, trust in the law suffers.

Brown reminds us that courts can open doors, but it also reminds us that progress is not inevitable. It must be demanded, defended, and renewed.

The lesson of Brown is not nostalgia. It is a responsibility. I still remember learning about Brown in school not as a dusty legal milestone but as proof that American institutions, however flawed, could be pushed toward justice. Progress happens when people organize, vote, litigate, teach, write, march, and refuse to accept injustice as settled law.

Seventy-two years ago, nine justices helped open the schoolhouse doors. Today, democracy requires us to keep them open — not through nostalgia, but through vigilance, voting, and organizing, and by refusing to treat the erosion of rights as normal. The promise of Brown endures only if we defend it together.

X Has a Free Speech Problem — and I'm Living It

X recently suspended my account for “violating our rules against inauthentic behaviors.” That was the entirety of the explanation. X cited no specific post, identified no pattern of misconduct, and offered no definition of what, precisely, it considered inauthentic about my activity. There was no warning. I appealed, asked for specifics, and followed up. I received nothing in return. X’s own policies state that its authenticity rules target manipulation through fake accounts, coordinated behavior, and deceptive content — and that users may appeal suspensions made in error. In my case, the appeals process has led nowhere.

That silence should concern more than just me.

I was not impersonating anyone, using bots, running fake accounts, purchasing engagement, concealing my identity, or orchestrating any coordinated campaign. I posted under my own name, in my own voice, on matters of public concern. (You can still see my news and views on Threads.)

I also created images lampooning the president. After Trump decried the cost and design of the Obama library — and after renderings emerged of his planned library skyscraper-hotel-marina-event space complex — I created a parody concept for a “Trump Presidential Library.” 

The post that appears to have triggered the suspension was a Trump-as-George-Washington cartoon captioned “I cannot tell a lie. Biden did it,” accompanied by commentary on the erosion of accountability and democratic norms.

That is called political speech. It is also called satire. Both have been protected forms of expression in democratic societies for centuries. And both were, by any reasonable definition, plainly authentic.

The contradiction is difficult to ignore. X accused me of “inauthentic behaviors” — yet every post was written under my own name, expressed my own views, and linked to my own commentary or clearly recognizable parody. Meanwhile, the broader ecosystem of political media on that same platform routinely carries content that is racist, threatening, dehumanizing, or incendiary.

Consider the record. The same platform that suspended me for political satire has hosted presidential posts threatening to annihilate an entire civilization, profane ultimatums directed at foreign governments, and language that, from any other account, would almost certainly trigger enforcement. The enforcement gap is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of record.

I condemned disinformation about vaccines, wrote about the politicization and demonization of science, criticized cuts to education and research, and voiced concerns about attacks on the news media and the degradation of truth in public life. Trump and many of his allies, by contrast, have normalized language that casts journalists as “enemies of the people,” opponents as “traitors,” and entire communities as threats — language that sits comfortably on the platform, uncontested and unenforced, and that routinely edges to the boundary of criminal incitement without quite crossing it.

Elon Musk acquired X with a promise to make it a more open arena for public expression. That promise deserves scrutiny when a real person, posting under his own name, can be suspended for political criticism and satire — and then offered nothing but silence in response. “Free speech” as a platform value cannot be selectively applied based on whose speech is at issue.

This is not a customer-service complaint. It is a question about who gets to speak in the defining public forum of our time — and who decides.

X is among the most consequential communications platforms in public life. Politicians use it to shape narratives, announce policy, and dominate news cycles. Journalists use it to report, distribute, and break news. Researchers and experts use it to interpret events in real time. X is, of course, a private company, and the First Amendment constrains government action — not the moderation decisions of private platforms. But that legal distinction does not end the inquiry. When a sitting president uses social media as a de facto channel of governance, and when participation in that public square can be revoked through vague accusations and opaque processes, platform governance becomes a matter of legitimate democratic concern.

Many people responded to my suspension by saying I was better off without it — that X has become a cesspool, that suspension is practically a badge of honor. I understood the sentiment. But that response, however satisfying, concedes too much. It accepts that a platform of this consequence can suppress lawful political opinion without evidence, without explanation, and without recourse — and that the appropriate response is simply to walk away.

Platforms have a genuine responsibility to remove spam, fraud, threats, harassment, and coordinated manipulation. No serious person disputes that. But when a platform accuses a user of “inauthentic behaviors,” it should be able to identify the conduct, cite the specific post, explain which rule was violated, and provide a genuine review process. Without that, policy becomes pretext, enforcement becomes theater, and whatever trust remains evaporates.

If a platform this powerful can silence lawful political speech this casually — with no justification, no process, and no accountability — the consequences extend well beyond any single user. For businesses, journalists, researchers, and policymakers who depend on X as a channel of record, the absence of due process is not a minor inconvenience. It is a societal risk. Platforms that want to be treated as essential public infrastructure must be held to the governance standards that come with that role.

This article also appears in O’Dywer’s PR. 

Update, April 20, 2026: Well, it ended the way it started – without warning or explanation. The suspension is over. The point of my article remains the same, of course. 

A Hundred Years Is Too Long to Wait

Today is the anniversary of the Civil War’s opening shot. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, beginning a bombardment that would launch four years of slaughter. That war did not erupt because America had settled its deepest racial contradiction. It erupted because the country had postponed it — and postponement, in America, has a way of becoming a habit.

America has settled into a troubling rhythm: roughly every hundred years, the nation makes a major formal advance against racial injustice — only after long resistance, bitter struggle, and blood. The Declaration of Independence in 1776 gave us the principle. The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 dismantled segregation and legal discrimination. None arrived cleanly or uncontested.

Start with the Declaration. Americans rightly celebrate it as the nation’s statement of human equality. But even at its creation, the promise was narrowed by political cowardice. Congress deleted Jefferson’s passage condemning slavery and the slave trade — in part to satisfy South Carolina and Georgia, and in part because northern commercial interests were implicated. The founding document offered a universal creed while shrinking from a full confrontation with human bondage. The first great American statement against inequality was compromised before the ink was dry.

Then came the century of evasion, rationalization, and bloodshed. Defenders of slavery wrapped themselves in the language of property, local control, and constitutional restraint. But the historical record is unambiguous: secession was driven by the determination to preserve slavery. Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens said so plainly — the Confederacy, he declared, rested on slavery and white supremacy as its cornerstone. Even emancipation was denounced as ruinous, lawless, and socially catastrophic. Yet the 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery nationwide. It was a giant step, but one taken only after war, slaughter, and years of arguments designed to make justice seem impossible.

A century later, the country had to fight again over whether Black Americans would enjoy rights already promised on paper. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation in public accommodations, addressed employment discrimination, and promoted school integration — but it did not emerge from consensus. It came after years in which Southern states and local authorities met civil rights demands with arrests, beatings, police dogs, fire hoses, and organized obstruction. In Birmingham, police attacked young demonstrators with dogs and high-pressure hoses. In Mississippi, Freedom Summer volunteers faced beatings, arrests, bombings, and murder. In Selma, state troopers brutally assaulted peaceful marchers on a bridge the whole country watched. The law passed, but force was used again and again to delay, block, and punish its moral logic.

That is the real pattern. America does move — but only after making the targets of injustice endure another generation, or three, of excuses. The 1770s gave us the promise. The 1860s abolished slavery. The 1960s dismantled legalized segregation. We should take hope from that progress, but not comfort from its pace.

A hundred years is too long to wait for another leap forward. We should not resign ourselves to hoping that the 2060s will finally bring the next great breakthrough. The pattern has repeated twice. A country that has already postponed justice through slavery, segregation, and generations of excuse-making forfeits the moral right to postpone it again. Refuse to let the pattern repeat a third time. Demand change now — not after another century of delay.

We're Paying $1 Billion to Fall Behind

Every country makes mistakes. What’s harder to accept is when a country makes them on purpose—or at least knowingly. The United States is currently doing both, making choices that point not sideways, not slower, but backward in ways that could take a generation to undo.

The federal government recently agreed to pay roughly $1 billion to TotalEnergies to abandon offshore wind projects in U.S. waters. Those projects were expected to power more than a million homes. Instead, that capital is being redirected into dirtier, less sustainable oil and gas development. This is not deregulation. It is a deliberate, taxpayer-funded intervention to halt one form of domestic energy production in favor of another.

That alone should give pause. But it's part of a pattern—across energy, science, public health, civil rights, and institutional governance—that suggests the country is pulling away from the very foundations that built its strength. And not by accident.

Science and Research

Energy decisions make headlines. Science policy rarely does. But the consequences of underfunding it outlast any news cycle.

For decades, American leadership has been built on sustained investment in research through institutions like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, investments that produced the breakthroughs defining modern life, from cancer therapies to semiconductors. Recent funding constraints and disruptions are already affecting research pipelines. Universities are scaling back. Grants are stalled. Researchers are reconsidering where to build their careers.

This isn't theoretical. It's arithmetic: slow the investment, slow the innovation, lose the ground. China has spent years building out its research capacity. The EU keeps deepening collaborative funding. The U.S. doesn't need to outspend them. But walking away from the table is a different thing entirely.

Public Health

The costs in public health are the most immediate. The United States spent decades creating a system capable of responding to outbreaks, developing vaccines, and protecting population health. It took a long time to build. It’s taking a far shorter amount of time to break.

Recent shifts in vaccine policy and public health messaging are accelerating that erosion. Growing political interference in agencies like HHS, combined with amplified skepticism toward vaccines despite overwhelming scientific consensus, is undermining the institutional confidence that makes public health systems work. Vaccines are one of the most effective tools medicine has ever produced, and the trust behind them took generations to earn.

Eroding confidence in that system doesn't create freedom. It creates a specific kind of vulnerability—the kind that shows up as outbreaks, as misinformation taking hold, as people dying from diseases we know how to prevent. And once that trust is gone, it doesn't come back easily.

Environmental Policy

Not every regulation is worth keeping. Some rules are outdated, some are redundant, and a serious case can be made for trimming them. But that's a different argument from what's actually happening.

Efforts to weaken water protections, emissions standards, and pollutant tracking may reduce compliance costs in the short term. But many of these protections were established after costly failures: industrial contamination, unsafe air, widespread health consequences. Rolling them back doesn't eliminate risk. It shifts it onto communities and future taxpayers. When guardrails are removed, the consequences tend to arrive later and cost more.

Voting Rights and the Press

A country's strength depends on whether people trust the system that governs them. The proposed SAVE Act would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. Noncitizen voting is already exceedingly rare, yet millions of eligible Americans lack ready access to such documentation—rural voters, lower-income individuals, many married women whose legal names differ from their birth certificates. When barriers rise, access falls. Policies that reverse the trajectory toward broader participation reshape who governs and who does not.

The same pressure is bearing down on the press. The First Amendment isn't an abstraction—it's the mechanism by which power gets scrutinized, challenged, and held to account. When the government threatens broadcast licenses, targets specific media organizations through regulatory pressure, and repeatedly labels journalists as enemies of the state, the effect is a press that pulls its punches. A country without independent journalism doesn't become more stable. It becomes less informed, and more easily misled.

The Pattern

Each of these areas can be debated individually. But taken together, they point in the same direction: away from investment in the future, away from scientific expertise, away from broad democratic participation, and away from the independent institutions that hold power accountable. That is not a neutral shift. It is a deliberate one.

And because these systems are connected, the damage doesn’t stay in one place. Weaker research means slower medical breakthroughs and fewer competitive industries. A less trusted public health system means a less healthy, less productive workforce. And when people stop trusting institutions, the effects are harder to trace but impossible to ignore.

It's tempting to view these developments as inevitable, as if they're simply the product of forces too large to name or change. They're not. They are the result of decisions made by elected officials, supported by voters, and enabled by disengagement.

Many Americans supporting these policies are doing so in good faith, responding to legitimate concerns about economic security and eroding trust in government. But good intentions don't guarantee good outcomes. In practice, these policies often work against the very interests they claim to serve—gutting research slows the medical breakthroughs that save lives, weakening public health infrastructure puts families at greater risk, and turning away from future industries shrinks the economy those families depend on.

This isn’t really about left or right. It’s about whether the choices being made actually serve the people they’re supposed to serve.

The United States is not in irreversible decline. It remains one of the most dynamic and capable countries in the world. But direction matters.

Spending $1 billion to shut down offshore wind development is not the defining policy of this era. But it’s a clear signal of what the priorities are—and those priorities reach well beyond energy. Countries don’t usually fall behind all at once. They do it gradually, through decisions that each seem defensible on their own but add up to something much harder to reverse.

That process can be reversed. But it won't reverse itself. It takes attention and engagement—and if left unaddressed, it can last for a generation.

The Last Laugh?

Comedy, Dissent, and the Far Right’s Campaign to Silence Satire

We’re still laughing. For now. 

American politics has long been divided along emotional lines: Republicans evoke fear, while Democrats respond with humor. The right energizes followers with grievance-filled slogans like “Take Our Country Back,” “Stop the Steal.” The most impactful responses from the left often come through late-night monologues, sketches, and stand-up routines.

Ask yourself: how many hard-right comedians with mainstream audiences can you name? Talk radio features conservative stars, and primetime opinion shows can rage for hours. However, the current lineup of popular political comedy mostly includes people like Bee, Colbert, Kimmel, Meyers, Noah, Oliver, and Stewart.

That imbalance matters. Humor is a strength of democracy. It punctures pomposity and invites self-correction. Fear narrows; comedy opens. Today, the far right isn’t trying to out-joke comedy – it’s trying to silence it through economic, political, and legal pressure.

Silencing the jesters

On September 17th, Disney’s ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live after Kimmel made a remark about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and then joked about Donald Trump’s reaction to a question about how he was dealing with the loss. (“I think very good,” Trump said. “And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks. They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years. And it’s going to be a beauty.”).

The action followed public warnings from FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr that affiliates airing “distorted” content could face penalties; Nexstar, which owns many ABC affiliates and is seeking FCC approval for a $6.2 billion acquisition of TEGNA, preemptively removed the show.

Donald Trump publicly celebrated the suspension and called on other networks to cancel more late-night shows, signaling retaliation instead of debate.

The network returned Kimmel to his show on September 23rd after public outrage and a rash of cancellations of Disney-owned streaming services. But Nexstar and Sinclair, owners of local ABC affiliates, kept him off the air. That is, until September 26th, when they caved to the backlash and, more importantly, faced lower ratings without Jimmy.

Weeks earlier, in July, CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, officially citing financial reasons related to the Paramount–Skydance deal. Since Colbert had criticized that very merger, the move raised questions – fair or not – about whether corporate and political interests were aligned against a prominent satirist.

These examples reveal a larger pattern: dissent expressed through comedy is being labeled as distortion, punished as indecency, or viewed as a regulatory liability. Some critics argue that these recent cancellations are no different from ABC’s 2018 decision to cancel “Roseanne” after Roseanne Barr tweeted a racist insult about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. However, that comparison is misleading. Barr’s case involved a private employer enforcing conduct standards after an openly racist outburst. The attacks on Colbert and Kimmel today are about political revenge and corporate caution in response to satire targeting those in power. One concerns accountability for hate speech; the other aims to intimidate dissent. Conflating them is a false equivalency that hides the real danger.

Lessons from the past

The recent threats by the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses are new, but individual comedians facing government pressure and legal threats are not. Lenny Bruce, a pioneering comic of the 1950s and 60s, was repeatedly arrested on obscenity charges for routines that challenged religious and political authorities. His prosecutions discouraged performers and sparked national debates about free speech. George Carlin, another legend of political comedy, was arrested in 1972 for performing his 'Seven Dirty Words' routine. The case, FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, reached the Supreme Court, which upheld the FCC’s authority to regulate 'indecent' broadcasts. Both Bruce and Carlin show that even in a democracy, government institutions have tried to punish comedians when their words challenged prevailing norms or threatened those in power.

Historians note that autocrats have always feared humor. In 1930s Nazi Germany, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels reacted angrily to satire, considering it as a threat to morale and authority. He shut down the Berlin cabaret Die Katakombe, and its host Werner Finck was detained in a camp; later, Finck was banned by the Reichskulturkammer. Performers like Fritz Grünbaum and Paul O’Montis faced persecution or death.

Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly imprisoned satirists, from the 2016 prosecution of German comedian Jan Böhmermann to the 2025 arrest of staff at the satirical magazine LeMan. In North Korea, humor is tightly controlled by the state; in 2016, Kim Jong Un even banned sarcasm, fearing it was used to mock him. Remember the death threats he made after the release of “The Interview”? China fined comedian Li Haoshi’s company $2 million in 2023 for a joke about the military, and censors foreign sitcoms that cross political red lines. In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s government canceled the satirical puppet show Kukly in 2002, called dissenting comedians 'foreign agents,' and has jailed or exiled performers who mocked the war in Ukraine.

They understood what modern cognitive science confirms: emotion influences people more than facts. Comedy, however, has always been a remedy for fear. No wonder authoritarian regimes want to eliminate the jokes. Laughter exposes their fears and threatens their hold on power.

Why this matters

Comedy is not trivial. It’s one of democracy’s pressure valves – a way for ordinary citizens to laugh at the powerful and prevent fear from swallowing the public square.

Lyndon Johnson, of all people – the powerful, driven, bullying, visionary president – understood the importance of humor and free speech. Though the Smothers Brothers (popular back in the day) performed a controversial satire of him and his Vietnam War policy on their TV show, LBJ said:

“It is part of the price of leadership of this great and free nation to be the target of clever satirists. You have given the gift of laughter to our people. May we never grow so somber or self-important that we fail to appreciate the humor in our lives.”

Contrast this with Trump’s vindictiveness – gloating over Kimmel’s removal and publicly urging other networks to cancel shows. The difference isn’t about taste in comedy; it’s about whether satire is recognized as part of the democratic bargain.

If the far right succeeds in silencing satire – through lawsuits, regulatory threats, and corporate caution – we’ll lose more than just late-night shows. We’ll lose one of the oldest, most humane defenses against authoritarian politics.

Democracy cannot be sustained by fear and force. It requires dissent – even when dissent comes as a joke. The far right understands this. That’s why it’s trying to kill the laughter. The question is whether we will let it.

Scientific Snobbery and Other Acts of Institutional Malpractice

Arthur Caplan’s important new EMBO Reports essay, “How stupid has science been?” serves as a powerful reminder that for decades, much of the scientific community viewed public communication as a career liability – the Sagan Effect, because many regarded the famed astronomer with disdain for trying to explain science in simple, relatable terms.

That cultural snobbery mattered. It left many citizens unprepared to evaluate claims and ceded ground over to the ill-informed, propagandists, and those seeking to manipulate others. Snobbery created a vacuum, but if we only focus on scientists’ failures, we’ll miss the larger structural forces now fueling mistrust and politicization – forces that must be addressed directly if we want science (and our health and global competitiveness) to recover.

Start with the partisan divide in trust. Pew Research Center finds confidence in scientists remains higher among Democrats than Republicans, and the gap widened during and after the pandemic. The pattern shows that party identity influences whether evidence is trusted – regardless of facts or how skillfully scientists explain it.

It’s worth remembering that science wasn’t always a partisan issue. America’s main science agencies were created through mid-century consensus, not by culture-war reactions. The CDC began in 1946 as a malaria-control effort that evolved into the foundation of the nation’s public health system; the NSF was established in 1950 when President Truman created it for “research driven by curiosity and discovery”; the NIH’s history dates back to the 1887 Hygienic Laboratory.

But now, active political interventions have been layered onto the federal science apparatus. Recently, the White House fired CDC Director Susan Monarez weeks after she took office, prompting senior resignations and raising alarms about political control of public health decisions. The administration also proposed slashing NIH’s budget by roughly 40 percent (about $18 billion). Even if Congress moderates these proposals, they signal that federal science has become a partisan battleground.

Performance and integrity are vital for building trust. Americans remember serious ethical and governance failures—like the inhumanity of the Tuskegee syphilis study and the retracted, heavily debunked Wakefield paper linking vaccines to autism—because they shattered the expectation that science self-corrects quickly and transparently.

Finally, our news and information ecosystem supercharges falsehoods. A study of millions of tweets published in Science showed that false news spreads “farther, faster, deeper” than truth – mainly because people share novelty and outrage, and platforms amplify it. That’s a systemic issue; clearer language from scientists helps but can’t, on its own, beat virality.

The trust dividend is pragmatic, not poetic. When evidence prevails, patients receive faster diagnoses and fewer risky detours; businesses scale sooner because regulators trust transparent methods; schools update curricula without culture-war spectacles; and cities act on air and water data before crises metastasize. That’s why the antidote to politicized science isn’t just speeches but a system: clear standards, timely corrections, and public dashboards showing how evidence guides decisions. Consistently doing this doesn’t just reduce tension—it boosts the nation’s ability to solve problems. Communication matters, yes, but performance plus transparency are what turn skeptics into stakeholders.

Certainly, talented public communicators like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, Michio Kaku, Hank Green, and Jessica Knurick, along with training hubs like Stony Brook University’s Alan Alda Center, have entered the scene. Helpful, but far from enough. These efforts must multiply a thousand, even a million times, reaching every part of the country.

So, yes: some snobbery initially created a vacuum. But now, polarization, policy shocks, long-term under-investment, governance failures, and algorithmic virality cause most of the damage. It’s a monumental problem, and we cannot wait for Congress to take meaningful action.

1. Scientists: make communication a core, even mandatory, part of your role, not just a side activity. Back in 2006, I urged scientists and doctors in Nature Biotech to make science more understandable and accessible to the public. It’s not about dumbing things down; it's about making them simple and relevant. If your research is funded by the public, explaining and justifying it is a service. Include a clear, plain-language summary on every paper and preprint; hold regular public Q&A sessions with schools, libraries, and faith groups; and include communication achievements in promotion and tenure dossiers.

2. Media: stop presenting “both sides” equally; emphasize the strength of evidence. False equivalence turns well-established science into a debate show. Use proportional balance: give more coverage to claims supported by strong evidence and less to fringe assertions unless the story specifically addresses misinformation. As I’ve argued elsewhere in “False Equivalencies: The Danger of Treating All Information Equally,” giving equal time to unequal sides misleads intentionally.

3. Schools: focus on teaching how to think rather than just memorizing facts. We don’t need every student to become a scientist, but every citizen should be able to recognize evidence, uncertainty, and tradeoffs. Make the scientific method a regular part of education from middle school onward, pairing it with statistics, probabilistic reasoning, and media/digital literacy. Balance STEM with the humanities so students can grasp ethics, history, and policy contexts.

4. Politicians: be the local leaders science needs. Establish a standing science advisory group in your office composed of accomplished professionals from nearby universities and health systems. Hold regular evidence briefings on issues important to your constituents (e.g., climate change, mental health, vaccine guidance, opioids, air, water, and soil safety). When guidance shifts, announce it openly and explain why. Leadership isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about showing your process.

The current politicization is (hopefully) temporary, not unavoidable. We can reverse it, but only if we address and invest in all the root causes—not just the easiest or least controversial ones. We must be brave and determined before we become sicker, poorer, and even more vulnerable.

Craving Reliability in an Unreliable World

There was a time when life had a rhythm and a structure that provided a sense of stability. New automobile models from major manufacturers debuted in the fall, coinciding with the fresh lineup of television shows for the next year. Political campaigns had defined seasons, unlike the perpetual, endless cycles we see today. People consumed news in predictable doses – morning or evening newspapers and the 6 o’clock broadcast. Then came 1980, along with CNN’s 24-hour news cycle. 

I like a fast pace. I like action. But over the past few decades, the world has been accelerating toward a state of constant stimulation, creating a culture of immediacy, anxiety, and FOMO (fear of missing out).

The erosion of reliability and dependability – qualities that once defined institutions, businesses, and even personal relationships – has led to a more volatile society. When everything is in flux, from how we consume news to how governments operate, uncertainty becomes the norm. The modern political climate, typified by Mark Zuckerberg’s ethos of a “move fast and break things” mentality, exacerbates this instability, making it difficult to trust that the systems designed to serve us will endure.

The Cost of Constant Change

At the heart of reliability is consistency. Toyota outpaced U.S. stalwarts not merely by selling cars but by building its reputation on reliability. McDonald’s expanded nationwide and globally because customers always knew what to expect – a dependable product that felt familiar. Similarly, FedEx built an empire on the promise of guaranteed delivery times, reinforcing the idea that businesses thrive when they prioritize reliability over disruption.

Contrast this with today’s landscape: streaming services release entire seasons at once, disrupting the traditional weekly anticipation of new episodes. The news cycle refreshes every second, rendering yesterday’s headlines irrelevant before they can be fully processed. In politics, policies and positions can shift overnight, with leaders reversing their stances as quickly as a spreading rumor or a social media trend. This constant churn creates instability and fosters a culture where nothing feels secure.

However, this doesn't mean that change is inherently negative. Adaptation is essential for growth, and businesses, governments, and individuals must evolve in response to new realities. The key lies in understanding when and how to change in a way that preserves trust and stability. JCPenney serves as a cautionary example of how abrupt, poorly executed changes can backfire. In 2011, CEO Ron Johnson aimed to revitalize the department store by eliminating sales and discounts in favor of everyday low prices. Although his intention was to modernize the brand, the drastic shift alienated loyal customers who were accustomed to bargain hunting. The outcome was a significant decline in sales and consumer trust. This example demonstrates that while change is often necessary, it must be managed carefully to ensure it aligns with customer expectations and core brand values.

The Psychological Toll of Instability

Stability is not merely a luxury; it is essential for mental well-being. When individuals know they can depend on certain structures, it eases stress and anxiety. Now, work emails arrive at all hours, and the expectation for immediate responses intensifies burnout. The line between personal and professional life has become blurred, making it difficult to truly disconnect.

In the political arena, the unpredictability of governance has heightened public anxiety. Legislative norms that once ensured steady, incremental change have been abandoned in favor of radical shifts. The chaotic management of Twitter (now X) following Elon Musk’s acquisition illustrates the dangers of impulsive, reactionary decision-making. Abrupt mass layoffs, policy reversals, and inconsistent enforcement of rules have created an unstable platform where neither users nor advertisers know what to expect. Similarly, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), influenced by Musk, has eliminated government jobs without a clear long-term strategy, leading to service disruptions in crucial areas such as veterans’ affairs and nuclear security. This instability erodes public trust and intensifies societal stress.

The recent trend of dismantling policies without clear replacement strategies – whether in healthcare, environmental protections, or economic regulations – erodes confidence in institutions. People question whether today’s rules will still apply tomorrow, making long-term planning nearly impossible. The whipsaw of on-again, off-again tariffs, for example, has thrown the global economy into turmoil.

The Importance of Dependability in Leadership and Institutions

Strong societies rely on dependable leadership. The most outstanding leaders – from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Angela Merkel—are remembered not for their flashiness but for their steady hands during turbulent times. Their decisions instilled confidence because they were predictable and rooted in principles rather than short-term expediency.

An article titled “The Surprising Trait Google Looks For To Identify Potential Leaders” by Walter Chen emphasizes a similar principle in business. Chen states, “At Google, they're obsessive about looking at data to determine what makes employees successful, and what they found in the numbers was surprising. The most important character trait of a leader is one that you're more likely to associate with a dull person than a dynamic leader: predictability. The more predictable you are, day after day, the better.” Leaders who are erratic or reactionary create uncertainty, which ultimately undermines efficiency and morale.

In business, companies that uphold their commitment to quality and service withstand the test of time. Apple’s focus on long-term reliability in its products has cultivated a loyal customer base. Their ecosystem strategy ensures that devices work together seamlessly, reinforcing consumer trust.

Reclaiming Reliability in an Unstable World

To counter the chaos, we must collectively re-emphasize the importance of dependability. Businesses should prioritize consistent service, and governments should support measured, sustainable reforms instead of reactionary changes. Individuals can foster reliability in their lives by following through on their commitments, maintaining integrity, and building trust within their communities.

The world may never return to the slower pace of the past, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept unpredictability as the new standard. Stability is not a relic; it’s a choice. In an era marked by constant disruption, the ability to offer reliability and dependability is more valuable than ever.

Nuance Is Out – It Needs to Come Back

The Rise of Binary Thinking in Public Discourse

In today’s world, nuance is rapidly disappearing. Politics, media, and public debate have become dominated by black-or-white, yes-or-no thinking and communication. Leaders and decision-makers no longer have patience for complexity; instead, they opt for sweeping, sometimes incendiary language that may look decisive but often creates more harm than good.

The consequences of this shift can be seen in political rhetoric, media coverage, corporate decision-making, and public policy. From government leaders passing policies without considering long-term effects to social media reducing issues to simplistic slogans, the ability to grapple with complexity has all but vanished.

This lack of nuance is not just frustrating – it’s dangerous. It leads to policies, leadership decisions, and public conversations that fail to acknowledge the full scope of reality. It’s time to examine why nuance has fallen out of favor and how we can restore it before losing our ability to think and communicate critically altogether.

How Media and Politics Reward Oversimplification

One of the biggest drivers of binary thinking is the modern media landscape. The 24-hour news cycle and social media algorithms can prioritize engagement over accuracy, meaning the most extreme, emotionally charged language gets the most attention.

Consider the recent coverage of the White House’s decision to suspend all federal grants and loan disbursements. While some outlets reported the White House’s justification – that the move was necessary to prevent public funding of “wokeness” and programs it deemed wasteful – others highlighted concerns from critics who labeled it an unconstitutional overreach that would undermine essential programs. The framing of the issue quickly devolved into a polarized debate – either a bold crackdown or a reckless assault on public funding—rather than an analysis of the policy’s mechanics, trade-offs, or potential compromises. Few discussions examined the long-term implications or the specific programs affected, reducing the conversation to partisan conflict instead of policy substance.

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky's research on cognitive biases helps explain another factor contributing to this mindset. People naturally prefer certainty over ambiguity. Instead, they want to avoid wrestling with complexity and seek quick, straightforward answers. Media outlets and politicians exploit this tendency by simplifying issues into a good versus evil narrative, where one side is entirely right, and the other is completely wrong.

Musk’s NIH Overhaul: A Case Study in Oversimplification

An example of the dangers of eliminating nuance in decision-making is Elon Musk’s attempt to restructure the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Musk, known for his aggressive and combative leadership style, took a “wood chipper” to the indirect research costs paid to grant recipients. 

Instead of carefully studying potential reform measures, he slashed funding, jeopardizing ongoing and future studies and the employment of scientists, medical researchers, and support staff across the country. His goal was to make the NIH more efficient. However, his approach ignored the social contract between the government and universities and the complexity of biomedical research, which often requires long-term investment rather than immediate results.

The result? Chaos. 

Many critical NIH programs were abruptly halted, scientists scrambled for new funding, and even private-sector partners expressed concern about the long-term impact on medical innovation. What Musk framed as a bold, decisive move was an oversimplified gutting of an institution whose work does not fit neatly into a profit-driven model. (See my article, Running Government Like a Business? Think Again.)

This is the kind of false clarity that dominates leadership today. Instead of making thoughtful, informed adjustments, leaders increasingly favor sweeping, disruptive action – a “move fast and break things” approach that disregards complexity.

The Death of Complexity in Public Policy

This problem is not unique to Musk. Across government and business, leaders are rejecting incremental progress in favor of dramatic, attention-grabbing moves.

Consider Donald Trump’s recent tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China. These tariffs were presented as a decisive strategy to pressure foreign governments on immigration, illegal drugs, and trade issues. However, the reality was far more complex – retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico, disruptions to supply chains, and an absence of clear benchmarks for success. Instead of tackling the root causes of economic and immigration challenges, the tariffs acted as a symbolic, high-impact maneuver with uncertain long-term effects. This type of performative, surface-level decision-making creates the illusion of action while failing to address the underlying issues.

How to Elevate the Conversation

If I weren’t such an optimist, I’d say we’re too far gone – too many people are invested in and profiting from the current state, where crude, simplistic messages persuade individuals to act against their self-interest and undermine democracy. We must find ways to elevate how we communicate and interact to restore civility and evidence-based decision-making. This will require a declaration of the need for change and a commitment from various stakeholders to a range of efforts over an extended period. Here are a few key steps communicators, policymakers, and business leaders can take:

1. Encourage Complexity in Public Discussions. Rather than presenting false binaries, leaders and the communicators who advise them should emphasize educating the public about trade-offs and long-term consequences.
2. Prioritize Incremental Change Over Blunt Action. Policy and decision-makers should recognize that big problems require thoughtful, long-term solutions.
3. Acknowledge That Emotional Appeals Can Oversimplify Issues. Emotions are a powerful tool in communication, but they can be even more effective when combined with rational analysis. Journalists and communicators must counter the clickbait, outrage-driven news model.
4. Teach Critical Thinking and Media Literacy. The public needs better tools to recognize when issues are being flattened into false binaries. This process should begin early by teaching students how to evaluate sources, recognize biases, and engage with complexity.

Nuance is fading because it’s tougher to sell, more challenging to explain, and harder to act upon. Additionally, it requires time. In a world where leaders seek quick results, the media wants engagement, and the public craves certainty, complexity has become an inconvenience. However, the cost of ignoring nuance is massive. If we want better leadership, policies, and public discourse, we must resist the urge for quick, flashy, or frenzied explanations and responses. We must embrace complexity, acknowledge trade-offs, and have the patience to address issues with the depth they deserve.

Biden Won – So Did Science

The most anti-science, science-denying president of our lifetime was defeated by, you guessed it, science. While the election was close, it still has to rank as one of the biggest ironies in history.

Even so, seeing how tens of millions of people voted against their own self-interest is one of the most baffling and infuriating phenomena I know. It helps to prove that a belief can overpower a fact, how a lie can (shall I say it?) trump the truth. 

The facts and allegations are painful to repeat but, briefly, Donald Trump failed to disclose taxes or foreign entanglements; destroyed immigrant families; encouraged white supremacists; belittled women; covered up ties to Russia; illegally used campaign funds; threatened allies; praised dictators; created economic hardship with a trade war; killed environmental protections; undermined funding for education and the arts; enriched himself and his family at taxpayer expense; threatened political adversaries; mocked disabled persons; disparaged soldiers; attacked the news media; rammed through lifetime appointments to the judiciary; advocated voter suppression and intimidation efforts, and lied to the public – according to fact checkers – approximately 25,000 times.

But put aside his long list of self-serving, amoral, unethical, and likely illegal activities for a moment. It was the COVID-19 issue that Donald Trump handed to Joe Biden. While Trump won in some of the states hit hardest by the virus, the pandemic cost him the election. He and tens of millions of others may have ignored the science, but a bug less than 0.000004 inches across tipped the scales to Biden. 

Trump cowed Republican leaders, tossed the Obama “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents” and all but disbanded the White House Coronavirus Task Force. He called Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the world’s top infectious disease specialists, a “disaster,” said scientists were “idiots,” and falsely claimed “doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID.” 

Despite all of that and the desperate efforts to gaslight the public on the seriousness and deadly scope of COVID-19 – a White House press release claimed the president ended the pandemic – Trump could not alter the science of a viral infection. He couldn’t bully the virus away.  He couldn’t short-circuit the careful research and development process required for new vaccines and therapeutics. 

Joe Biden did push a few other campaign issues: Trump’s lack of character, morality, and empathy (“The Battle for the Soul of America”); the assaults on affordable healthcare and attempts to strip protections from those with preexisting conditions, and the diminished standing of the United Sates around the world. In fact, some reports had the economy and health care out-polling COVID-19 as key election drivers.

Yet the Biden team ended up displaying some remarkable consistency in messaging on the COVID crisis. Why? The economy and health care are complex issues. COVID-19 is not. It’s impossible to ignore. The virus is surging again and predictions are the worst is yet to come. Some will continue to claim it’s a hoax, that the numbers are inflated, and it’s not much worse than a bad cold. But the number of cases, positivity rates, hospital admissions, and deaths are hard to argue unless you’re locked into a belief system where no facts will ever penetrate. 

Trump couldn’t help but to respond, not with actions to protect the public health but with more derision. “With the fake news, everything is COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID,” Trump complained at a mostly maskless rally. It was painful to see how he politicized science and it used as a wedge, driving people further apart.

A platform based largely on science, medicine, and public health won this election – barely. We will win the battle against this coronavirus with the right leadership and resources; naming a new coronavirus task force on November 9 was the president-elect’s first major announcement. But the fight comes with a terrible, sometimes irretrievable cost, the result of missteps and misdeeds from a malign, incompetent Administration. 

Like hundreds of millions of others around the world, though, I’m hopeful that in the days and years ahead that facts will matter, and our scientific, political, educational, and journalistic institutions will again be held in the highest regard.

Between blog posts, I invite you to follow me @pauloestreicher.

Three Steps to Save the Presidential Debates

While the president was demanding a fourth debate with his challenger, an opinion piece in The New York Times suggested that debates be scrapped altogether. Yes, the debates have certainly devolved over the years but this is a classic “throw the baby out with the bathwater” reaction. Let’s fix them instead. Here are three changes to elevate the debates and increase their value to the public:

 

1. Ditch the audience. In her NYT piece, Elizabeth Drew wrote that debates were less about conveying a vision or a plan than they were about upstaging the opponent. “Points went to snappy comebacks and one-liners. Witty remarks drew laughs from the audience and got repeated for days and remembered for years,” she said. She’s not wrong, of course. But it’s the debate format that has helped to create the reality TV atmosphere. The candidates have been playing to the audience; they look for applause or a laugh. Let’s get serious and let’s remove the audience. The point might be made moot because of the pandemic this year but the editorial board of The Washington Post recently endorsed this idea, calling the debates “quip contests.” We’ll gain time, engagement, and potentially more substantive responses. 

 

2. Level the field. I mean this literally. The candidates should be seated, anchored to their chairs. The freewheeling Town Hall format, where the candidates roam the stage, should be banned. In 2016, candidate Trump tried to intimidate Secretary Clinton when he alternated between standing and pacing back-and-forth behind her. Clinton said he was breathing down her neck, which made her feel "incredibly uncomfortable." Politico magazine called it "the ugliest debate ever seen." Pressing a physical advantage – bullying – must not be allowed. And having the candidates seated will also help mitigate any height discrimination, or “heightism,” where taller people are perceived to be stronger, and better leaders.

 

3. Check the facts. A consequence of our glorious First Amendment is that political speech is highly protected – essentially any half-truth or lie may be told. While there are plenty of post-debate analyses, it’s too late. Many viewers tune-out after the practiced smiles and forced handshakes. And our brains tend to cling to misinformation even after it's been refuted. We need real time (or near real time) fact checking. If IBM's Watson computer can win at Jeopardy!, why can't we get an indication of veracity while the debate is still in progress? Let’s use technology to help the experts sift through speech transcripts and testimony; almanacs and atlases; laws, regulations and policy statements; credible survey data, and non-partisan news articles, journals, and research reports. Let’s help ensure the public gets the facts and not the flimflam.

 

While we’re more polarized than ever and fewer people are undecided, more information, more opportunity for side-by-side comparison, is still crucial to the democratic process. In a society that’s increasingly stressed by the health and economic consequences of COVID-19, systemic racism, and so many other issues, political discussion can be dispiriting, infuriating, and sometimes incendiary. But, as Ray Bradbury wrote in Fahrenheit 451, “If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.”

Between blog posts, I invite you to follow me @pauloestreicher.

Science Denial Part 2: A Threat to Children, Education and Competitiveness

The New York Times published a special Education Issue last week, “Learning What Works” in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. The articles, collectively, set out an array of recommendations from top experts. They include:

• Increase attention to ideation and creativity
• Make teaching more immersive
• Increase teacher training and teacher pay
• Develop and distribute better instructional materials
• Encourage mentoring by outside experts or college/graduate students
• Provide the history and the context for science
• Dedicate time to applying ideas and practical invention
• Raise curriculum and testing standards

These are all good and important. So, let's go! There are many priorities out there but STEM education must be in the highest classification. We know from the scores obtained by the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment that 15-year-old students in the U.S. perform about average in reading. Average isn’t great but, when it comes to the math and science scores, it’s practically outstanding. Out of 34 countries, the U.S. ranked 17th in science and 25th in math. (The 2012 results will be released at the end of this year.)

But there are barriers to success even within the science teaching community. Dr. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, said that roughly 20 percent to 25 percent of the nation’s biology teachers don’t believe in evolution and subscribe to creationist views. Teaching evolution and/or climate change in schools has been hotly debated by legislatures and school boards in states including Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas. These boards should embrace and promote, not disparage and reject, the facts.

Students receive at least some science as part of a required curriculum. But what happens when they arrive at home? Are the lessons in science class reinforced or refuted? In a 2012 poll by Gallup only 15% of U.S. citizens believe humans evolved without any intervention from God. Thirty-two percent said God guided the evolutionary process and 46% said God created humans in their present form. (Seven percent had no opinion.)

And what do the students hear from those in power? Rather than lead the country through and away from false and flawed ideas, a number of our elected leaders are cheerfully, bombastically, pulling the country backward. In Congress, the House Science Committee hardly holds to its title. Rep. Paul Broun (GA) fumed, “All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.” Former Science Committee member Todd Akin (MO) famously opposed abortion for rape victims, in part, because “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Rep. Dana Rohrabacker (CA) said recently, “Global warming is a total fraud” and dismissed global warming as a plot to institute a “global government.” His suggestion that “dinosaur flatulence” could explain historic climate change patterns was also notable. Rep. James Sensebrenner (WI) similarly amped up the conspiracy theorists when he said climate change theory was a “massive international scientific fraud.” Rep. Ralph Hall (TX) also charged that climate change is the product of a global conspiracy of scientists and told the National Journal in 2011 that he didn’t believe in a human influence on global warming because “I don’t think we can control what God controls.”

This competition between God and science is a false construct and distracts us from the issues. In his book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2006), Dr. Francis Collins, director the National Institutes of Health, wrote, “the principles of faith are, in fact, complementary with the principles of science.” He went on, “there is no conflict in being a rigorous scientist and a person who believes in a God who takes personal interest in each one of us. Science’s domain is to explore nature. God’s domain is in the spiritual world, a realm not possible to explore with the tools and language of science.” Not believing in a “personal God,” Albert Einstein, nonetheless said, "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

The task of increasing our STEM preparedness goes well beyond the confines of schools. It’s immensely complex, opposing interests are deeply entrenched, and will take much longer and cost much more than most people realize. It’s not a problem that can be addressed by a five or ten year plan. It will take a generational blueprint that needs to be comprehensive, cohesive and well capitalized in order to see a return on the investment.

Between blog posts, I invite you to follow me on Twitter @pauloestreicher.

Science Denial, the U.S. and Us

This article also appears in odwyerpr.com.

Before a Call to Action, We Need Insights and a Plan

Professor Adam Frank at the University of Rochester rang a warning bell about the dangers of science denial in an important op-ed (Welcome to the Age of Denial) in The New York Times last week. He stated the sad fact that, “it is politically effective, and socially acceptable, to deny scientific fact.” Science denial is becoming more entrenched and culturally correct.

This juggernaut of illogic is like a cancer that has metastasized. He noted that, “climate deniers, taking pages from the creationists’ PR playbook, have manufactured doubt about fundamental issues in climate science that were decided scientifically decades ago. And anti-vaccine campaigners brandish a few long-discredited studies to make unproven claims about links between autism and vaccination.”

How do we fight this? Dr. Frank called on the scientific community to channel Carl Sagan, the late astronomer, author and science personality, and do more communicating (and for the general public to be more active, too). The Equation blog from the Union of Concerned Scientists echoed this “call to action.”

Yes, scientists must learn how to engage and how to communicate. I know there are some efforts underway at institutions such as the National Academy of Sciences and Stony Brook University’s Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science but, no matter what, there are critical steps that must come first. We need to ask questions and use the resulting information to generate the insights necessary to develop and implement a plan.

So, a “call to action” directed where, with what information, in what form? Before anything is done, we must understand the causes, motivations and forces at work. What are the religious, political and corporate interests, and what are their strategies and tactics? And, we must know our target audiences, and their issues and concerns. What’s the right language, the most compelling examples, what will it take to be persuasive? We know it’s not just about the facts – otherwise, everyone would accept global warming and evolution, no one would smoke, kids would get vaccinated and all motorcyclists would wear helmets. Scientists (and marketing and communications professionals) need to marry specific, emotionally-based messages with the factual.

The news media, of course, have a huge role to play. In misguided attempts to achieve fair balance (or, cynically, sometimes achieve the outcomes they wish), the media feeds into false equivalency – providing equal coverage to opposing views when, in reality, one side dramatically outweighs the other. An example was brought into the sunshine on the pages of The Wall Street Journal. It published a letter last year, “No Need to Panic About Global Warming (January 27, 2012), that said, “There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.” The editor noted the letter “has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article.” I checked those names. Of the 16, there was only one climate researcher and one atmospheric scientist. 

Indeed, a few days later, another letter was published entitled, “Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate.” The 38 climate, environmental and atmospherics experts who signed the letter admonished, “Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition?” They went on: “While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. Research shows that more than 97% of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused. It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses.”

This isn’t just about promoting the truth or science getting its fair share. Professor Jon D. Miller, now at the University of Michigan, told The New York Times in 2005 that “People’s inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process.” The Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy points out that “Many of the nation’s founding fathers were citizen scientists,” including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and George Washington. “John Adams, for instance, spoke of the “science of government.” In a debate with Benjamin Franklin in 1776, Adams invoked the principle of mechanical equilibrium to argue on behalf of his conception for our government’s system of checks and balances—designed, at least in part, to ensure policies based on verified, trustworthy evidence."

We've had one ”wake-up call" after another on the issue of science denial. But it's complex -- there isn't just one thing we should do. To start, though, we must review and revere our history, and use those founding principles again. The nation began with questioning dogma, exploring options, celebrating invention and spreading information. That brought us a long way and it can bring us further still.

Between blog posts, I invite you to follow me on Twitter @pauloestreicher.