Donald Trumps War on Scientists Has Had One Big Side Effect

[babylonsister]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/donald-trumps-war-on-scientists-has-had-one-big-side-effect/

Donald Trump’s War on Scientists Has Had One Big Side Effect
More than a dozen Democratic candidates with scientific backgrounds are running for Congress.

Tim Murphy
Jul. 31, 2017 8:36 AM


There’s something different about the crop of Democrats running for Congress in 2018. As in previous years, the party has recruited a small army of veterans in high-profile races and in Republican-held districts. There are loads of state legislators, business owners, and government officials.

But the candidates also include a volcanologist who’s worried that her favorite research spot will be opened up for development; an aerospace engineer who’s running against the climate-denying head of the House Science Committee; a pediatrician who spends part of the year treating leprosy patients in Vietnam; and a physicist who worries what budget cuts would mean to the federal research facility where she spent her career.

All told, more than a dozen Democratic candidates with science backgrounds have announced their candidacies for Congress or are expected to in the coming months. The boomlet of STEM-based candidates amounts to a minor seismic event in a community where politics and research have traditionally gone together like sodium and water. Trump has been in office just six months, but he’s already done something remarkable—he’s gotten scientists to run for office.

The surge of science-based candidates has been aided by a new political outfit called 314 Action, launched last summer by Shaughnessy Naughton, a breast cancer researcher from Pennsylvania who ran for Congress in 2014 and 2016 . The group, named for the first three digits of Pi, aims to do for candidates with scientific backgrounds what EMILY’s List has done for pro-choice women—funding, recruiting, and training candidates at every level of government. So far 6,000 scientists have reached out to the group about running for federal, state, and local offices; and 314 plans to also back candidates in three dozen school board races this fall. Washington has plenty of lawyers; maybe it’s time for a fresh experiment.

“Traditionally the attitude has been that science is above politics, and therefore scientists shouldn’t get involved in politics, and what that ignores is the fact that politicians are unashamed to meddle in science,” says Naughton. “The way we push back against that is to hold a seat at the table.”

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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/donald-trumps-war-on-scientists-has-had-one-big-side-effect/

[exboyfil]

1. We have anl engineer

running against Blum. I plan to support her in the primaries. Courtney Rowe

[ProfessorPlum]

2. same thing is happening with a bumper crop of female candidates

running for various positions.

Trump may make America great after all, if we can get more women and scientists in government leadership positions

[flibbitygiblets]

10. So true, he's also done the impossible by making ObamaCare wildly popular

Dem's couldn't have paid any amount of $ to make that happen. Ironically R's, headed by their idiot manchild leader, have actually made it happen!

[Nitram]

3. Could also have been influenced by the March for Science.

I've never seen so many nerds out protesting.

[Raster]

4. Bless the Nerds!

They typically have great signage!

[trof]

8. Not exactly a nerd. Check out Abdul El-sayed

Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed (born October 31, 1984) is an American epidemiologist. He has announced his candidacy for Governor of Michigan, running as a Democrat.[1] He served as the Executive Director of the Detroit Health Department and Health Officer for the City of Detroit from 2015-2017.

Appointed at 30 years old, he was the youngest health commissioner in a major US City. Previously, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University. He is an internationally recognized public health expert, and the author of over 100 scholarly articles, abstracts, and book chapters on public health policy, social epidemiology, and health disparities.[2
El-Sayed graduated in 2003 from Bloomfield Hills Andover High School, where he was a three-sport athlete – football, wrestling, and lacrosse – becoming a captain for each team sport in which he participated.[11]

Education[edit]
El-Sayed attended the University of Michigan, where he majored in Biology and Political Science, and played for the University’s men’s lacrosse team.[12] Winning several awards, including the William Jennings Bryan Prize for Political Science, he graduated with Highest Distinction and delivered the student commencement speech alongside President Bill Clinton in 2007.[13] As a student at University of Michigan, El-Sayed lived with his grandparents, Jan and Judy Johnson, at their house in Whitmore Lake, Livingston County, Michigan.

He was awarded a full-tuition Dean’s scholarship to attend the University of Michigan Medical School, where he completed his first two years of medical school.[14] There, he led a student medical mission to Peru and founded a student organization which raised money and coordinated community service for a local free clinic.[15] He was offered the Marshall Scholarship and awarded the Rhodes Scholarship in 2009 as a second year medical student.[15] He attended Oriel College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 2009,[16] where he completed a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health in under two years in 2011.[17]

While at Oxford, he earned a full blue as captain of Oxford’s men’s lacrosse team.[18] He completed his MD at Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons in 2014 on a Soros Fellowship for New Americans[19] and Medical Scientist Training Program fellow funded through the National Institutes of Health.[20]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_El-Sayed

IMHO he is WAYYY too smart to get involved in politics.

[Raster]

9. It is time to raise the bar in politics... way, way higher.

Great resume!

[meow2u3]

5. Revenge of the Nerds, Politics edition!

Sounds like a good ROTN sequel, only in real life.

[PatSeg]

6. Oh my

Unintended consequences, how delicious.

[NNadir]

7. For many years - too short actually - my congress person was a physicist.

Rush Holt.

Best congressperson I ever had.

We scientists need to speak up. We don't want science to be political - it should be anything but - but when there is hatred of science itself, we need to confront that.

[mopinko]

11. there is gonna be a blue wave people.

takin bets.