WIKIMEDIA, AP/LM OTEROResearchers and science advocates are taking to social media to voice their opinions on what a Donald Trump administration may mean for science in the coming years. Out of nearly 160 respondents who voted in a Twitter poll posted by The Scientist, 42 percent said that they feared research funding would be affected by a Trump presidency. Running a close second was public support of science, which 35 percent of respondents felt would be impacted by Trump.
Comments also came in to The Scientist’s Facebook page. “I am taking a breath and trying to explain to my children that science matters, that global climate change is indeed occurring and we are watching it happen via species migration, storm intensity, and inundation on our coastlines,” wrote Deanne Caffee-Cooper. “That we have to continue to work on credible threats to international food security and water resources. That our fight is the good fight and that we do not have all the answers. That our integrity as professionals is valuable. That we have to continue to educate and not be silent any longer.”
Another Facebook commenter, Chris Stable, expressed a slightly different viewpoint. “If science falters as a result of the political sphere,” he wrote, ...
