For the second year, the Stand Up for Science movement has sprung up. Initiated in the United States and adopted in many countries, including France, it is a symptom of a deep concern: the relegation, contestation, and sometimes even disqualification of scientific discourse in the public space. We are living in a paradoxical moment. Science has never been so present in our lives – from health crises to climate issues, technological innovations to public policy – and yet it has never been so attacked, weakened in its social legitimacy.
Compared to other movements of researchers and academics, Stand Up for Science is not just a plea for resources, even though this is real and vital. It is an alert to society. An alert on how our political, media, and economic elites treat knowledge and complexity. Science is not a fixed truth.
It is a process, a method, an elaboration made of hypotheses, contradictions, and questioning. And this is precisely what is being attacked by Trump and his ilk. What is being targeted is the possibility, for science, to describe reality – present or past – independently.
What those who rise up for science are defending is this possibility: that of a science that is not entirely subordinate to political justification or economic interest. The possibility of knowledge that maintains its autonomy of production and its ability to challenge received ideas and ready-made discourses. The Stand Up for Science movement raises an essential question: what place do we want to give knowledge and complexity in our societies?
In fact, it is not simply about “defending science”. As Olivier Berné, astrophysicist and co-host of the Stand Up for Science France collective, said, it is about “defending our collective ability to describe reality and argue based on facts.” So, defending the essential conditions for a clear and contradictory public debate and, consequently, democracy.
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