{"id":3049,"date":"2016-11-09T15:08:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T14:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/?p=3049"},"modified":"2016-11-11T15:11:59","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T14:11:59","slug":"president-trump-first-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2016\/11\/09\/president-trump-first-response\/","title":{"rendered":"President Trump \u2013\u00a0first response"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I was asked for a comment on the implications of the US presidential election for the scientific world. This was my immediate response:<\/em><\/p>\n

Unlike the day after the EU referendum vote, when I was bitterly upset<\/a>, I just feel numb today. I don\u2019t know if that is a kind of despair settling in because despair is precisely the wrong type of reaction to Trump winning the US presidential election. Throughout the campaign he showed himself to be a fascist and racist who bragged about his mis-treatment of women. He showed scant regard for truthfulness and espoused denialist views on climate change. It seems unlikely that the scientific and research prowess of the USA will flourish under such a president, but perhaps the checks and balances built into the US constitution will provide some sort of protection (notwithstanding the fact that the Republicans appear to be in control of Congress and the Senate).<\/p>\n

More worrying is the sense of a turn in the tide of history arising from Trump\u2019s victory and the Brexit vote. I\u2019m in my fifties and in my lifetime I have seen Britain join the EU, I have seen the end of the Cold War, and the end of apartheid in South Africa. In my own home nation I have seen the IRA lay down its\u00a0arms. And yet here we are witnessing the rise of divisive nationalist and xenophobic instincts, which have been deliberately agitated in both recent election campaigns.<\/p>\n

Clearly part of the disgruntlement at the status quo is due to the unequal spread of the benefits of globalisation (exacerbated by the lack of consequences for rich bankers in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis). That has to be addressed politically. For researchers, increasingly branded as a self-serving elite that is out of touch with the common people, we need to redouble our efforts to stand up for evidence, and for the intrinisically international nature of what we do. We need to work harder to demonstrate the relevance of our work to the wider population and the values that underpin it. In the UK we are already pretty good at public engagement but I think we may not be good enough for the times that we now find ourselves in.<\/p>\n

Update (14:11, 11 Nov 2016):\u00a0<\/strong>Part of my response was reported in an update to this article in Nature<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I was asked for a comment on the implications of the US presidential election for the scientific world. This was my immediate response: Unlike the day after the EU referendum vote, when I was bitterly upset, I just … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}