Stand up and “March for Science” say people who don’t know what science is

The March for Science is on Saturday.

Will J Grant and Rod Lambert struggled with the message behind “March for Science” at The Conversation. We should march, they said a month ago, because “science is a human process” . Which will be news to people who thought science was about evidence and reason. On Saturday they will be marching for the kind of science that is “passion” and “belief”. Don’t turn up thinking this is about the dispassionate Laws of Physics. You’ll be at the wrong rally.

Is the March to solve a problem or create one?

The March seems to be fighting strawmen. It is supposedly about “Encouraging scientists to share their research” (as if scientists like to hide their research). We know they hide their data, their methods and their adjustments, but when the ABC turns up to interview them, they don’t seem to hide their opinions. They hide their declines but don’t hide their Nobel Prizes (even if they didn’t get them). Do they need encouragement?

And the March is there, apparently, “affirming science as a vital feature of a working democracy”, who says it isn’t? Like voters have been asking for witchdoctors instead? Absolutely no one […]