Scientists and Social Progress

We’re in a time where everyone loves science- or at least the idea of science.  You see it in the high ratings of Cosmos, hosted by someone who has been catapulted to fame thanks to his work in the realm of popular science, Neil deGrasse Tyson.  The I Fucking Love Science page on Facebook has over 16 million fans.  Even people who believe in pseudo-science, such as creationists and climate change deniers, try to argue their perspectives from a [mangled and inaccurate] scientific standpoint to try to claim their stance is scientifically valid.  Hell, theres no shortage of people on the internet whose entire debate strategy revolves around talking about how “logical” and "scientific-minded" they are, and how "illogical" and "ignorant" their opponents are.

Clearly, we are in love with the idea of science.  But  what about the scientists themselves?  The people who do the research and make the discoveries, the innovators and geniuses who push scientific progress along?  We claim to look up to these people, but in a very decontextualized way.  We admire them for their scientific achievements and like to post inspiring quotes from them on Facebook, and there is nothing wrong with that.  The scientific achievements from these people, however, didn’t happen to just pop into their heads one day.  They came from people who dedicated their lives to questioning the world around them.

Of course, scientists are dynamic human beings who don’t exist in a vacuum.  In other words, they exist in the context of their societies and are therefore more than just scientists.  In the realm of socio-political issues, many famous scientists have a history of standing for justice, equality, and peace that gets left out of our textbooks. 

 We’ll begin with perhaps the most famous scientist of all time.

 

Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist born in Germany in 1879.  Unfortunately, while brilliant, he was of Jewish descent, which wasn’t good news when Hitler was elected.  While in the United State in 1933, the Nazis came to power and Einstein decided not to go back.  He became a citizen of the US in 1940.

He was also a staunch supporter of civil rights.  When it came to racism in the US, Einstein drew a lot of parallels with his own experiences as someone of Jewish descent living in Germany.  In 1946, at a lecture at Lincoln University (the first university to give degrees to black folks) he said “there is a separation of colored people from white people in the United States. That separation is not a disease of colored people. It is a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it.”  And indeed, quiet he wasn’t.

Einstein joined the NAACP and tried to use his fame to support civil rights causes.  Unfortunately, as alluded to above, those in power are quite skilled at talking about only the “good” of a celebrated cultural figure and leaving out the parts that critique them.  Einstein’s support of civil rights was rarely given any press, other than by the black press, so most of America never knew about his views at the time.

This didn’t stop him from still taking action, however.  He was friends with W.E.B. Du Bois and was prepared to testify for him in a 1951 trial as a character witness; the judge overseeing the case dropped the case when he found out Einstein backed Du Bois.  He was also a friend with singer and activist Paul Robeson, and the two worked together on the American Crusade to End Lynching.  When two black couples were murdered in Georgia one year and justice wasn’t served, he wrote a letter to the president demanding justice and that strict federal anti-lynching bills be passed.  There were many more actions he took, including small ones like paying a black student’s college tuition and letting a famous black opera singer stay at his place when an inn wouldn’t let her stay there.

Einstein is hardly an anomaly, however.  In fact, a larger example can be seen in the Manhattan Project, which Einstein himself helped create by co-signing a letter to president FDR urging for the project’s creation.

 

Not to be confused with the Dr Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was undertaken to try to beat Nazi scientists to the development of nuclear arms.  There were tons of scientists employed by the project, not to mention military personnel and construction workers.  They all worked tireless until finally, in 1945, knowing how catastrophic and dangerous the bomb was, there was a petition signed by 155 scientists involved with the project that urged Truman to warn the Japanese about the bombs and have a demonstration to show them how powerful it was.  Scientist Leo Szilard led the efforts for this petition; unfortunately, J Robert Oppenheimer forbade the petition from being widely circulated among the rest of the people involved in the project and snitched to General Leslie Groves, the military head of the project.  Apparently the phrase “snitches get stitches” doesn’t apply in the scientific community the way it does in the political realm. 

The petition was quelled, and Gen. Groves tried to counter it by polling his scientists about how many of them supported a display of the bomb before dropping it.  To his dismay, it was 83%.  He of course swept this under the rug, and what actually ended up happening in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is history.

After the war, many went on to form the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences, which was a group aimed at educating people about the nuclear weapons and advocating international cooperation instead of an out of control arms race.  Even Robert Oppenheimer went on to show ambivalence towards nuclear proliferation, though he was stripped of his scientific clearance after a McCarthy hearing in 1954 and stayed largely out of the public eye after that.

Essentially, a large amount of those who created the most devastating weapon in human history believed in peaceful resolution and working together instead of international dick measuring contests.  Unfortunately, once it is out of their hands, the decisions tend to be made (once again) by people in power.

A little before their time, someone who researched the field of radioactivity was chemist and physicist Marie Curie.

Curie discovered radium and was one of the first people to realize that radioactivity isn’t some chemical process, but an innate part of atoms themselves.  She was not only the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, but the first person to win the prize in two different fields (physics and chemistry).  There is the distinct possibility that without her work, the people mentioned above would not have been able to do what they did.

As mentioned above, scientists don't exist in a vacuum, even if they wish they did so that they could measure what happens when you light a fart on fire in the vacuum of space.  No, scientists exist in the context of their societies.  And Marie Curie was a scientist a hundred years ago, during a time where women didn't even have suffrage in the majority of the world.

What was important was that she not only pushed past the sexism, but she was very adamant about combating it.  In 1911, she was denied election to the French Academy of Sciences by one vote.  She decided to refuse letting her name be submitted for reconsideration and didn’t let them publish any of her papers for the next ten years (considering all of her scientific innovations, that is a heftier toll than it sounds like).  While she didn’t join any larger socio-political movement, she made it a point to not only navigate sexist institutions, but challenge them.

 In the beginning of this segment, I mentioned the popularity of the new Cosmos series.  Lets turn to the host of the original series, Carl Sagan.

 

Carl Sagan was the original scientist (more specifically, astrophysicist and cosmologist) who brought science and its concepts to popular culture.  In his words, both verbal and written, there was a tangible passion for science that was contagious.  He was able to make complex concepts understandable and interesting for the average person, and he never came off as condescending.

He was also an anti-war activist.  He opposed the Vietnam War at a time when it was seen as blasphemy to do so.  He even voluntarily surrendered his top security clearance given the the US government in opposition, and there is a good chance his position on the war is what didn't get him tenure as a professor.  As he once said: “For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon. It reads, ‘We came in peace for all Mankind.’ As the United States was dropping seven and a half megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock."

His opposition to war continued with the presidency of Ronald Reagan.  Reagan's "fuck diplomacy, lets keep this dick measurin' contest going!" approach was in severe opposition to Sagan's "hey, lets try and understand each other instead of act like shit heads!" approach.  Carl Sagan not only opposed Reagan's attitude on paper, but was arrested for multiple demonstrations against nuclear proliferation.

There are so many more well known scientists that have been supportive of human rights issues.  For instance, Stephen Hawking supports Palestinian rights and last year decided to support a boycott against Israel by not attending a high profile conference there.  Neil deGrasse Tyson himself has spoken up about the barriers faced by black folks and women and in one episode of Cosmos he "wonders" why some women who were central to astronomy as a field have been left out of our textbooks.

Trust me, I science preeeeetty often, bro.

Going off of that last thought, there are tons of scientists who have been kept out of the history books or had their roles downplayed because of their backgrounds.  There have also been plenty of scientists who weren't big innovators, but still made important contributions and had empathy for their fellow human beings.

So when you think of scientists, remember that they aren't just brains in lab coats.  They are human beings, and often their perspective of questioning things overlaps into questioning why society is structured the way it is.  This isn't true of all scientists, of course, as there have been many- to use the scientifically appropriate term- complete fuckers in the history of science.  The point here is that scientists can, have, and should be there for the betterment of society, rather than being complicit in injustices.

To me, scientific and social progress must go hand in hand if we are to truly advance as a species.  Scientific progress without our humanity means more climate disasters, more wars, and more innovations in technology used to oppress people.  Challenging power structures is just as important as challenging technological limits.

I'll leave you with this excerpt from Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot", which gives me goosebumps no matter how many times I watch it.