On politics and science, politicos and scientists.
Highly recommended, not because this short book is full of new information (though some might think so), but because it reminds average people of the top priority importance of science must be to humankind.
Because it is on time. At a time when we are living the consequences of our use or misuse or pure ignorance of science, and so we need scientists more than ever. We need science translators more than ever, from Rachel Carson to Jennifer Doudna to Neil deGrasse Tyson.
IMHO, deGrasse Tyson preaches to the choir.
But the choir's power isn't just in the song.
The choir's power is in how many times and in what variations it's sung.
1.
America's two political parties differ broadly and deeply. They reflect different views on humanity and who should benefit from the pursuit of science's research.
Democrats: science should be paid to research and learn.
Republicans: science should be paid to support ideology and business.
When American oligarchs and their corporations see science, they pick science that
a) promotes their "insider" interests
-- because most humans should be treated like animals
-- "improve the stock," "thin the herd," "lab subjects," or
b) promotes their profit while hiding
-- scientific research on effects of tobacco on humans;
-- effects of oil production on climate;
-- effects of injecting syphilis in black people to study it;
-- the effects of opioid addiction, etc.
-- health care billing markups that are many times higher than Medicare costs for the exact same treatments, and on and on.
2.
History shows the political uses of pseudo-science.
From Teddy Roosevelt, who believed the ills of modernity could be corrected in 3 ways:
a) return to the wilderness -- to toughen up for "the fight"
b) war -- raw fight for survival
c) breeding and eugenics-- boot camp for women, life-or-death struggle that strengthened the entire race; women who "shirked," or exhibited free will that would not submit to men, were worse than deserters
To Social/political "experts" on the pseudo-science of eugenics:
-- Charles Davenport, biologist and member of the Eugenics Section of the American Breeders Assoc.
-- Alexander Graham Bell, member of the same eugenics org,
-- Harry Laughlin, eugenics expert for the House Committee On immigration and Naturalization, who played a crucial role in shaping the 1924 Immigration Act, one of the most sweeping & restrictive laws in American history;
-- Mary Harriman, wife of Averell Harriman, railroad magnate, biggest donor to the Eugenics Record Office
-- wealthy horse breeder William Stokes, who contended that Americans could be bred to class, who wanted to segregate quarantine the unfit, castrate criminals, sterilize diseased and degenerate classes
-- 27 states with sterilization laws that put people into 34 categories fit for sterilization
-- William Taussig, Harvard professor who promoted sterilization
-- Henry Godard who invented the eugenic term "moron"
-- US Army who rounded up 30,000 prostitutes in WWI and put them in detention centers and jails to keep them and their "moronic" sexuality out of the reach of soldiers
-- Stanford's Lewis Terman who promoted the use of the I.Q. Test
To the US Supreme Court:
-- Albert Priddy, superintendent of the State Colony for epileptics and Feebleminded, won the SCOTUS test case decision for sterilization in Buck v Bell, that gave the state the power to regulate the breeding of its citizens ; Priddy helped make Virginia the national test case for weeding out "bad blood," "mongrel Virginians"
-- SCOTUS Justice Taney in the Dred Scott decision, wrote that he believed pedigree could be used to distinguish worthy citizens from waste people
-- SCOTUS Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, argued that sterilization was a civic duty... the humane option, as being sent to the colonies had been centuries before.
(Source: "White Trash -- The 400-Year Untold History of Class In America (2016) by Nancy Isenberg)
3.
Science -- run by men -- has historically been cherry picked by the wealthy -- men -- to promote their race, sex and therefore, their class preservation and power, placing whole regions of humans, impoverished by design and policy, into intellectual classes of "eugenic backwardness."
4.
No wonder science feels the blowback today. But scientists -- from the 3 Nobel winners in quantum physics to chemistry (atomically mapping RNA) to physiology & medicine -- do science. If we've lost ways of finding common ground, let science be the new arena of common ground effort. Even the US valued Nazi science and engineering after WWII.
Science has to sell itself -- Just like the Democratic Party does -- in the 3rd biggest country on a planet that has killed 99.9% of all species that ever lived, and couldn't care less what humans do to save themselves.
Many scientists, from Rachel Carson to Jennifer Doudna to Neil deGrasse Tyson, have tried to to just that. One way is that they've explained to laypersons how they and other scientists do their work.
Neil deGrasse Tyson says, "Science distinguishes itself from all other branches of human pursuit by its power to probe and understand the behavior of nature on a level that allows us to predict with accuracy, if not control, the outcomes of events in the natural world.
He lays out a kind of bottom line for the scientific method by quoting Arabic scholar Ahazen: "Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into believing something is true when it is fale, or that something is false when it is true."
He says, "Scientific discovery often carries the power to broaden and deepen perspectives on all things. Science especially enhances our health, wealth, and security, which are greater today than at any other time in human history."
When "selling" science is done well, transparently, and in the people's interests, not corporate interests, or the interests of the 36 million millionaires over 7 billion other humans. After scientists come patent holders, inventions, engineers, project prototypes, tests, and the greatest scientific good for the greatest number.
5.
If the wealthy own science, why should other humans trust their "commodification of research" when consumers have to ferret out the politics of their funders. If the wealthy lie to cover up any business predations of both science and human health, science suffers the public's lowered confidence. But deep down we know that doesn't make science any less good, beautiful and true. Which is why we jump up and down with every new space rocket or telescope photo.
It seems, more often than not, that as the public depend on the wealthy to support science for humanity, the sick and injured too often enter the wealthy's own self-named hospitals, research, academic endowment facilities -- places that are the wealthy's "gifts" to humanity to redeem their past sins toward humanity. Which reflects a privatization of the best things in life for the wealthiest.
6.
Such class wealth disparity does infect politics, and shows a kind of class war that's waged in a lane adjacent to they-don't-give-a-fuck-about-you politics.
Yes, Democrats and Republicans are different about science. Both want the benefits. One wants affordable benefits for the greatest number. The other wants maximum benefits at maximum profits for the number who can pay. They are different in how they fund science and sell science.
The wealthy who want to "capture" government for themselves had better develop a moral compass about both government AND science. Or else one of the political parties -- we Democrats -- will fight the wealthy behind corporate controlled science. But the Democratic Party will not attack scientists.
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I've always admired Neil and his work. This is going on my book list. 
