Science Summit at United Nations General Assembly 77 (UNGA77)

This event will take place in New York. 

In recent years, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, many of us have become increasingly alarmed by the growing attacks on science and scientists. We counter by saying that we believe in science, often taking up the slogan that we must follow the science. The problem is that we don’t know how to argue with those who have little regard for scientific authority, since we use the same blanket term for “science” as those who attack it. We group all of science under a single word we equate with the idea of truth, yet we also mix together those areas of science that are relatively settled with other areas that are under constant revision and development.

Science has always been under attack, whether it was Galileo demonstrating that the earth was not at the center of the universe or Darwin arguing that human beings descended from apes. For centuries, science itself was seen as undermining the authority of religious truth or knowledge, a losing battle across most of history. It was tempting to believe that the age of modernity would give a decided edge to science, leading inexorably to a general acceptance of the truth of science. We know now that it didn’t turn out that way.