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Marching for a cause

Apr 24,2017 - Last updated at Apr 24,2017

People in Washington and in over 600 other cities across the world Saturday came together for the March for Science, a “first step of a global movement to defend the vital role science plays in our health, safety, economies and governments”, the movement’s web page says.

The series of rallies and marches coincided with Earth Day and were an attempt to promote the cause of science, technology and reason.

The role of science in the economic and social development of nations across the world cannot not be recognised and appreciated. 

Noted American astronomer Carl Sagan was once quoted as saying that “we live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology”.

That is often true, so those participating in the march, which evolved from a social media campaign into a rally in support of science and protest against US President Donald Trump’s policies undermining science, were trying to raise awareness to the importance of science to mankind.

The organisers were spurred into action by Trump’s disparaging campaign declaration that climate change is a hoax and by his casting suspicion on the safety of vaccines.

His appointment of a Cabinet seemingly hostile to sciences, they said, and his approval of serious cuts to the budgets of institutions like the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency makes scientists feel, rightfully, threatened.

Science, a “candle in the dark”, as described by marchers in Geneva, is vital to human progress. 

Thanks to discoveries made in medicine, technology and space, for example, the human race is healthier, lives a more comfortable life and can better protect itself.

Ignoring scientific facts or calling them fake news is just burying one’s head in the sand to pander to creationists.

Climate change is as real as the last extreme temperatures witnessed by any place in the world.

Scientific evidence of climate change includes rising global sea levels, global temperature rise by a worrisome 1.1 degree centigrade, warming oceans, shrinking ice sheets, extreme weather, ocean acidification and decreased snow cover.

Denying these phenomena is simply showing ignorance.

Vaccination, on the other hand, saved millions of lives.

Doubters should know that since 2008, the Global Health Programme at the Council on Foreign Relations has tracked global outbreaks of measles, mumps, polio, rubella, whooping cough and other vaccine-preventable diseases like chickenpox, cholera, diphtheria, meningitis, rotavirus and typhoid.

This is often the result of a refusal to get immunised, an attitude no responsible leader would want to encourage.

Rejecting science as a tool for advancement, or simply out of ignorance, closing one’s eyes to the promise of science to mankind is unpardonable.

 

The March for Science may have helped draw attention to the importance of knowledge and supporting it.

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