On Saturday the world enjoyed the long anticipated March for Science, which transformed Earth Day into a global defense of STEM, led by quietly spirited people undaunted by weather, buoyed by conviction, and waving an unlimited supply of wry, funny signs. Fortune’s fearless leader, Cliff Leaf, had a great take on the March in today’s Brainstorm Health Daily that’s well worth your time:
They gathered at a biomedical research park in Barcelona, outside the Queensland Parliament House in Brisbane, and in a 70-person huddle in Blantyre, Malawi, chanting “Taima nji” (“We are standing strong”). They stormed the capitals of London, Paris, Tokyo, and Mexico City; assembled in cities accustomed to activism (San Francisco, Geneva, New York) and in those not so much, like Morgantown, West Virginia.
What began as a “throwaway” post on Reddit grew into a bullhorn of a message sounded from seven continents—from 610 cities and a frozen research station at the bottom of the world. On Saturday, untold numbers of citizens who support the idea of free scientific inquiry, and enough public funding to pursue it, took to the streets to tell everyone else on the planet they did.
They gathered at a biomedical research park in Barcelona, outside the Queensland Parliament House in Brisbane, and in a 70-person huddle in Blantyre, Malawi, chanting “Taima nji” (“We are standing strong”). They stormed the capitals of London, Paris, Tokyo, and Mexico City; assembled in cities accustomed to activism (San Francisco, Geneva, New York) and in those not so much, like Morgantown, West Virginia.
What began as a “throwaway” post on Reddit grew into a bullhorn of a message sounded from seven continents—from 610 cities and a frozen research station at the bottom of the world. On Saturday, untold numbers of citizens who support the idea of free scientific inquiry, and enough public funding to pursue it, took to the streets to tell everyone else on the planet they did.
Although U.S. based marchers didn’t fail to mention the current president, Cliff says to look deeper for the true meaning of the march. “For the most part, the scientists and science lovers who marched around the world on Saturday weren’t—and aren’t—protesting a specific person, or party, or policy. Even President Trump isn’t their main target. No, they’re taking on a core driver in the human psyche: fear.”
He’s absolutely right. The scientific method is a powerful antidote to fear, a rational skepticism that looks at the world and challenges status quo thinking in search of powerful solutions. Which is partly why it was so encouraging to see so many rank-and-file scientists taking to the street to defend, and where necessary, bravely heal themselves.
Science has had some soul-searching to do. Consider just a smattering of items we’ve covered in raceAhead in the past year: Oculus initially caused motion sickness in women because the equipment was developed and tested primarily by men. Dark and light skin tones couldn’t initially be accommodated by photo software, the continuation of a long history photography of being optimized for whiteness. People with mental health or other issues tried to get help from Siri and Alexa – and couldn’t. Racial biases are baked into the software products that are increasingly being used as predictive tools in criminal sentencing. Preventable disparities in health outcomes continue for black, brown and Native people, communities of people who not that long ago may have also been unwitting medical test subjects.
So, when a diverse group of scientists hit the bricks worldwide to fight for their right to peer review, they’re also fighting for their peers. You can read the organizer’s diversity statement here, but I’ll cut to their chase: “We acknowledge that society and scientific institutions often fail to include and value the contributions of scientists from underrepresented groups. Science itself can drive our conversations about the importance of diversity, as it provides us with the data to understand how systemic bias and discrimination impact our communities and how best to change it.”
That’s a method we can measure. So, keep marching, folks. With the introverts on the case, it’s enough to give you the statistical likelihood of hope.