One week to Netroots Nation

Panel on talking about science in unexpected places works to counter GOP retreat from reason

By Shawn Lawrence Otto | Jun 10, 2011 | Comments (2)

Netroots Nation is the progressive blogging and online activism community's annual gathering, and it will be in Minneapolis next weekend starting Friday, June 17.

I'll be there speaking on a panel about talking about science in unexpected places.

This is a critical topic in a time when the GOP is retreating into unreason and science becomes, in their view, a partisan topic.  This week, for example, Rush Limbaugh's response to Mitt Romney's statement that he "believes" in climate change was "bye bye nomination."

This trend is dangerous for America and something I take on in my upcoming book.

For the last two generations, scientists have enjoyed unprecedented financial support through government funding via the NSF, DOE, DoD, and other federal agencies.  This has been critical to our economy's growth since WWII - half of which has come from science.

But it has led scientists to make the faulty assumption that science is not political and it has allowed them to withdraw from the national dialogue, leaving a vacuum that is increasingly being filled by antiscience voices and threatening the very foundation of the United States, which was based on the idea that if we can discover truth by using reason, then all humans, not royalty as the representative of God, have equal rights and freedom.  It was self-evident.

If we retreat from our hold on truth via reason, we retreat from democracy. 

This panel is one account of increasing efforts to change the slide into unreason and protect America.

I hope you can make it!  Joining me will be:

Darlene Cavalier, the science cheerleader - who proves that smart is hot, and who helped me build Science Debate,

Josh Rosenau, a national leader defending the teaching of evolution in science classes,

climate scientist Heidi Cullen, a former national TV broadcaster who is working to get climate change content into local weathercasts, as well as other programs through Climate Central, and

John Abraham, a St Thomas engineer who is building what I believe is absolutely essential - a rapid response network of scientists to push back against climate change denialism in the media. 

See you there!

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