You are not owed public support
We are all ambassadors for our collective work
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Science isn’t just the pursuit of knowledge, it’s the whole set of cultural practices that allow some people to devote their lives to pursuing that knowledge. Today, those practices include a lot of public funding. That funding in turn depends on the general population both benefitting from science enough and understanding those benefits enough to perpetuate the scientific enterprise. This is the social contract of science: scientists are entrusted with one of humanity’s great shared projects and must continuously earn that trust.
The standard discourse around science places a lot of weight on the importance of communication and the role of professional science communicators, but that is just a small part of our obligation to build trust outside our bubble. Even if you do science to satisfy your own curiosity, if you aren’t self-funded, your work isn’t ultimately for you. We are never entitled to public support, financial or otherwise, and are all ambassadors for our collective work. Even when folks can’t understand our explanations they can still judge our attitudes and behaviors. It’s not enough to not be assholes, we need to be worthy of our neighbors’ enthusiasm, tax dollars, and votes. If we want science as we know it to last, we need to approach this fact with humility
Be the kind of scientist you’d want your own tax dollars to support. This means:
Show your gratitude for the opportunity to do science. Your PI is mad at you, all your cells just died, one of your grants isn’t getting renewed, and you’re not sure of your career prospects. Fine. If there isn’t something about doing science that makes all that trouble worthwhile for you, change careers. If your work is worth the pain, talk about your life so non-scientists can see what drives you to do science. As we said above, even when people can’t judge your work they can judge your character.
Don’t do bad science. In the same vein, if you’re just going through the motions to get paid or get a publication, people you talk to about your job can tell. They might even realize that some of their hard earned wages are paying you to be useless. That hurts every scientist. If you don’t believe in your research direction, pick a new direction. If you can’t change your main project, at least start a side project.
Don’t do really bad science. Unethical research ruins the fun for everyone by damaging trust and driving away money.
Do science that generates good stories and tell those stories. This not only makes life more fun, but is actually a decent heuristic for choosing research topics. Dan picked his PhD project because of the long-term potential of solar energy, but all his friends ever wanted to hear about was his giant laser. He learned his lesson and it wasn’t an accident that his later work involved a lot of explosions.
Seen from the point of view of ultimate social/public benefit, science is similar to the media.
For, there is a fundamental contradiction in the manner in which the media operates: it is supposed to be a public service but is rooted in private enterprise. This exposes media to sensationalism and the lust for short-term gains.
Guess there is a contradiction in human nature too!