URI_Research _Magazine_Momentum_Spring_2020_Melissa-McCarthy

do. Hypotheses live or die based on the accumulation — or the lack — of factual evidence to support them. “At its core, science is about telling factual stories that impact how we live on this planet,” says Peter J. Snyder, University of Rhode Island (URI) vice president for research and economic development. “Science is the framework by which we understand ourselves and both protect and improve our world.” Long concerned about how scientific information can be deliberately misused or mischaracterized, often for the purpose of pushing a political or financial agenda, Snyder wrote a book in 2009, Science and the Media , with invited essays from an impressive list of scholars whose disciplines span archaeology to neurophysiology, economics and theology. In one of the book’s chapters, a leading journalist detailed how every presidential administration, to varying degrees, has used science in ways to advance their political aims. “At the time we wrote the book, it appeared that the second Bush administration had a particularly disturbing track record with respect to the censorship of environmental sciences from its own federal agencies,” Snyder says. “Unfortunately, the goalpost has moved again and some of those concerns now seem a bit quaint by today’s standards.” The threat to the integrity of science continues unabated, with the assault on climate change research serving up as a prime example. Multiple international groups, from the United Nations to the World Health Organization, have issued reports detailing the imminent and dire consequences of inaction on climate change. Nonetheless, many scientists face restrictions on what they can pursue, say, and publish. In the United States, says Snyder, many thousands of scientists are funded by taxpayers through federal agencies to conduct vital,

credible research that should inform and guide public policy decisions. Yet, they are censored by political leaders and prevented from discussing the implications of their work in clear, plain language for public understanding. Snyder adds, “That’s an affront to me as a funded researcher at a public university, and I’m really worried about how any censorship of science impacts how our government creates policy and responds to pressing needs. As a society and, frankly, as a species, we don’t have time to waste.”

“The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

- Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)

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