Science is under attack and scientists are becoming more involved in efforts to defend it. The rise in science advocacy raises important questions regarding how science mobilization can both defend science and promote its use for the public good while also including the communities that benefit from science. This article begins with a discussion of the relevance of science advocacy. It then reviews research pointing to how scientists can sustain, diversify, and increase the political impact of their mobilization. Scientists, we argue, can build and maintain politically impactful coalitions by engaging with and addressing social group differences and diversity instead of suppressing them. The article concludes with a reflection on how the study of science-related mobilization would benefit from further research.
Over the past 50 years, the dilemmas attendant to scientific expertise with public policy in a democracy appear to have only become more acute. Moreover, with the explicit anti-science platform of the Trump presidency, scientists plunged into the policy maelstrom by mobilizing their expertise, social networks, and professional status to shape policy decisions on a wide range of political issues. Scientific input, including, in some cases, scientists’ resistance, is likely critical in effective efforts to confront contemporary policy problems.
This is not the first time scientists have mobilized on such a scale. The broader movement for nuclear arms control was instigated by scientists like Albert Einstein who made public statements warning against nuclear technology and weaponry when their direct advice to policy makers was ignored. He joined a broader scientists’ movement for nuclear arms control, going public with their professional expertise and status because they could not prevail with direct advice. By engaging in activism in this way, scientists in the movement hoped to seed broader public opposition for nuclear weapons and influence political authorities. Scientists in the movement attempted to trade on their scientific expertise and status to advocate on related political and moral issues such as arms control. More recently, we have seen similar patterns of science engagement around the issue of climate change. This type of advocacy persists despite strong professional norms against it as many believed it compromised scientific “objectivity.”
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In these ways, the challenge of science advocacy came to include a substantial dose of public engagement and education. Scientists warn, advise, advocate, and educate to support their preferred positions. They not only work through professional connections but also deploy status and institutional resources to gain broader audiences. They often connect with social movements and start expert organizations of their own to advance their concerns.
