The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is getting a new president as well: Nobel laureate Peter Agre. He tells the New York Times that scientists need to get involved as citizens is they are concerned about good science policy:
Q. RESEARCH AMERICA, THE WASHINGTON ADVOCACY GROUP, HAS BEEN TRYING TO GET SCIENTISTS TO RUN FOR OFFICE. IS THAT REALISTIC?
A. Oh, it’s doable. But the Senate is a very lofty place to start at, unless you’re prominent or extremely wealthy. There are other places for scientists to serve: school boards, town councils, state legislatures, even Congress. Bill Foster, a physicist at Fermilab, ran for Congress when Dennis Hastert gave up his seat. Leon Lederman (a Nobel Prize-winning physicist) organized a bunch of us to get out for Bill, and he won.
During the Bush administration, you heard a lot of complaining about science policy. Staying in our laboratories wasn’t going to change that. One of the things I wanted to do from the Senate [Agre considered running for the Minnesota seat won by Al Franken] is put a human face on science. I can also do that this year as president of the A.A.A.S.
This is a point well taken, but I personally have never seen hard data on how the civic participation of scientists compares with that of other career groups. I know many scientists who are very active citizens when it comes to things like attending town&school board meetings and volunteering for political campaigns, but I don't personally know any with elected positions on school boards of town councils. Does my anecdotal experience reflect real trends or not? I have no idea.
Perhaps another issue is that scientists migrate frequently. After college, grad school, and a postdoc, you generally don't end up settling long-term in a community until your mid-30's. Once you settle, you're working hard so that you don't have to move again in another 6-7 years after a tenure denial. Successful scientists often leave anyway after a decade, as they get recruited to a more prestigious university somewhere else.
What this means is that running for elected office is something people in this career track don't consider seriously until much later in life, and by that time, it is probably much harder to establish habits of civic participation. But that's no excuse. If you want science to influence public policy in your community, then run for office.
