The politicization of science for political gain occurs when government, business, or advocacy groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research or the way it is disseminated, reported or interpreted. The politicization of science may also negatively affect academic and scientific freedom, and as a result it is considered taboo to mix politics with science. Historically, groups have conducted various campaigns to promote their interests in defiance of scientific consensus, and in an effort to manipulate public policy.
The National Civic League is an American nonpartisan, non-profit organization founded in 1894 as the "National Municipal League," it adopted its new name in 1937. Its mission is to advance civic engagement to create equitable, thriving communities. To upgrade quality and efficiency of government in cities it enlists the business and professional classes, and promotes greater involvement in government. It also sought create merit-based systems for selecting public officials. The League envisions a country where the full diversity of community members are actively and meaningfully engaged in local governance, including both decision making and implementation of activities to advance the common good. It also promotes professional management of local government through publication of "model charters" for both city and county governments.
Myron Ebell is an American climate change denier who serves as the Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an American libertarian advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. He is also chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a politically conservative group formed in 1997 focused on "dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis". In September 2016, Ebell was appointed by then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to lead his transition team for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) is an umbrella organization for 26 (inter)national women's sororities throughout the United States and Canada. Each member group is autonomous as a social, Greek-letter society of college women and alumnae.
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of education policy or curriculum choices in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns and immigration policy, with regard to admitting foreign students and tech workers.
Science for the People (SftP) is an organization that emerged from the antiwar culture of the United States in the late 1960s. Since 2014 it has experienced a revival focusing primarily on the dual nature of science. The organization advocates for a scientific establishment that is not isolated from society, rather one that uses scientific discoveries to advocate for and advance social justice and critically approach science as a social endeavor.
The Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR) is a national non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. SWHR is the thought leader in research on biological differences in disease and is dedicated to transforming women's health through science, advocacy, and education.
Scientists in School is a leading Canadian science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education charitable organization that offers curriculum-aligned hands-on workshops from Kindergarten to Grade 8 across the country. Workshops are offered in both English and French and led by presenters that are experts in their fields. Scientists in School offers community workshops providing their program to libraries, summer camps, daycares, after-school programs and community groups. They have reached over 10 million children and youth since 1989.
Policy advocacy is defined as active, covert, or inadvertent support of a particular policy or class of policies. Advocacy can include a variety of activities including, lobbying, litigation, public education, and forming relationships with parties of interest. Advocating for policy can take place from a local level to a state or federal government. For example, a local advocacy group in Brunswick, Georgia, Defenders of Wildlife, advocated for the passage of the H.R. 5552 Migratory Bird Protection Act during 2020 when rollbacks to the bill were introduced from the Trump Administration. At the state level, advocacy for policy can be a joint effort between advocacy groups. In the United States, advocacy groups around the nation planned joint efforts to get the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA) signed into law in each of their respective states and in 2018, the bill was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott making it the tenth state to enforce this law.
The March for Science is an international series of rallies and marches held on Earth Day. The inaugural march was held on April 22, 2017, in Washington, D.C., and more than 600 other cities across the world. According to organizers, the march is a non-partisan movement to celebrate science and the role it plays in everyday lives. The goals of the marches and rallies were to emphasize that science upholds the common good and to call for evidence-based policy in the public's best interest. The March for Science organizers, estimated global attendance at 1.07 million, with 100,000 participants estimated for the main March in Washington, D.C., 70,000 in Boston, 60,000 in Chicago, 50,000 in Los Angeles, 50,000 in San Francisco, 20,000 in Seattle, 14,000 in Phoenix, and 11,000 in Berlin.
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is an American theoretical cosmologist and particle physicist at the University of New Hampshire. She is also an advocate of increasing diversity in science.
Autumn Kent is an American mathematician specializing in topology and geometry. She is a professor of mathematics and Vilas Associate at the University of Wisconsin. She is a transgender woman and a promoter of trans rights. In 2019, she received a Simons Fellowship.
LGBT people in science are students, professionals, hobbyists, and anyone else who is LGBT and interested in science. The sexuality of many people in science remains up for debate by historians, largely due to the unaccepting cultures in which many of these people lived. For the most part, we do not know for certain how people in the past would have labelled their sexuality or gender because many individuals lived radically different private lives outside of the accepted gender and sexual norms of their time. One such example of a historical person in science that was arguably part of the LGBT community is Leonardo da Vinci, whose sexuality was later the subject of Sigmund Freud's study.
Nina Dudnik is an American social entrepreneur, science diplomacy advocate, and the Founder and former CEO of Seeding Labs, a US-based nonprofit organization investing in building scientific capacity in the developing world. Dudnik founded the organization in 2003 as a graduate student studying at Harvard University, where she received her PhD in molecular biology.
Tamara Jane Zelikova is a climate change scientist, advocate and communicator interested in the impacts of environmental change on natural and managed ecosystems. Her interests are broad and include tropical biogeochemistry, as well as the effects of climate change on organisms big and small. She combines a strong emphasis on research with an interest in science communication and outreach, thinking about ways to expand the role of science in tackling global issues.
Angela Michelle Byars-Winston is a professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was the first African American to achieve the rank of tenured Full Professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She studies the impact of culture on career development, in particular for women and minorities in STEM. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and was one of Barack Obama's Champions of Change.
Amy Jean Klobuchar is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Minnesota. A member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Minnesota's affiliate of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the Hennepin County Attorney. She ran for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 election, before pulling out in March and endorsing Joe Biden.
Anita Marshall is an American geoscience education researcher and disability activist. She is known for her research on and personal experience with disability in geology.
The academic Strike for Black Lives and #ShutDownSTEM day were a mass shutdown of academia that took place around the world on June 10, 2020. The main goals of the strike and the shut down were to reflect upon anti-Black racism in academia and STEM and to commit to actions to eradicate it.
