Nearly a decade after the slogan “Believe Science” became popularized, the established scientific profession is once again called upon by the opposition to the second Trump administration to take a political stance. Whereas the first such “defense of science” in 2017 confronted conspiratorial dismissals of the scientific consensus on climate change and science education, the battlefront in 2025 has retreated so far that the rightwing offensive has directly disrupted federal science funding on which much research production in the United States depends. Between 2017 and today, we have faced planetary crises, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, wildfires and floods on unprecedented scales, and still-accelerating CO2 emissions, as well as the rising tide of neofascism. Not only has a liberal defense of science been unable to weather the metaphorical and literal storms, it has also contented itself with making technologies that enable more destructive wars and genocide. How did we get here? Why did the “defense” fail? What is to be done differently?
We recognize that science is inherently political. Science is defined as a set of human practices relating to knowledge that arises from, is shaped by, and helps reproduce the social systems in which it is embedded. Thus, science is not an objective good or neutral tool; it interpenetrates with all other social phenomena such as class, race, sex, gender, geography, and culture. Science throughout history is practiced unequally, benefits few, excludes many, and is inextricable from its human consequences. To defend “science,” we must first ask: Science for whom? By what means? Toward what ends?
Science is subordinate to class interests. Under capitalism, imperialism, white supremacism, cis-hetero-patriachy and other oppressive systems, the owners of science—the corporations, the wealthy elites, the military-industrial complex—dictate the agenda of scientific research, public education of science, and the market supply, demand, and price of scientific labor. This ruling class taunts scientists with the myths of individualism and meritocracy (in its celebration of personalities like Musk and Bezos) while extracting our work and dictating our livelihood. This ruling class exerts full control of the political system under so-called liberal democracy, and both parties and their politicians operate within the constraints of the ruling class consensus. As witnessed during the disastrous pandemic response then and the market-driven neglect now when vulnerable populations continue to die, appealing to the elected officials to defend science is a dead-end. In order to assert political agency as science workers, we must organize our own workplaces and communities in solidarity with the broader working class and social movements in a common struggle.
Science has been made possible by colonialism and imperialism. Scientific advancement in the US in particular, and the Global North in general, is built upon historical and present-day colonial plundering of land, resources, and labor, as well as draining of scientific expertise through migration from the Global South. “Progress” and “enlightenment” for the privileged few are exploitation, destruction, and displacement for the many. American science is complicit in national chauvinism, conquest, and oppression of knowledge production in other parts of the world. Science workers in the Global North must recognize our privileged position and be conscious of the social consequences of our sciences.
Science must encompass all fields of human inquiry. Science involves not only the study of the natural world, but also of society. The demarcation of STEM from other academic disciplines is an artifact of the structure of US science funding, which has resulted in uneven practice of human knowledge. The humanities and social sciences have long been threatened by rightwing offensives including funding cuts, adjunct hiring, departmental mergers, suspension of admissions, and censoring of scholarship—all of which warrant much greater attention and solidarity by those attempting to mount a defense of science. It is crucially important to reject STEM exceptionalism and to join and learn from the wider struggles against repression in higher education, especially facing increased state-sponsored terror against immigrant student workers and academics.
Defending science is not enough; science must defend the people. The attacks on science and academia did not occur on a whim. It is a continuation of the ongoing expropriation of the infrastructure of knowledge production and the accelerated privatization (degradation) of public institutions. It is a logical next step in a class war to defund education, healthcare, and any enterprise that retains the promise of benefiting working people and communities. This informs what types of science are undergoing austerity and what other types might experience booms: privatized high tech, military, agribusiness, and philanthrocapitalist pharmaceutical manufacturing and sales. Thus, instead of defending an abstract notion of science, we must scrutinize: science for whom, toward what ends? We defend a science that is for ecological restoration, vaccine development, transgender healthcare—a science that supports the wellbeing of people and the environment. We reject a science that is funded by the military, the fossil fuel industry, and Israel. We condemn a science that serves no benefit to the people other than accumulating profit.
We believe that a science for the people and a humane future can only be achieved through fundamental transformations of society. Join or start your local SftP chapter, build a militant science worker movement in principled solidarity with Palestine, Congo, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and everywhere imperialist science is detrimental to the oppressed. Organize to redirect society so that society can redirect science.
