Poems on Gender
BELIEVE SCIENTISTS
NO
No, no, no, no, no
Science is not a priesthood
It’s not a College of Cardinals
No scientist, no matter how decorated
No matter how great their achievements
Is a Pope, speaking ex cathedra
Believe and obey
That’s not science – that’s religion
We don’t need a planet of believers
We do need a planet of scientists
To respect science
You must become a scientist
You don’t need a degree
You don’t need a laboratory
You don’t need a job working at the Hadron Collider
What you need, what we all need
Is a basic understanding of the scientific method
Of experimental design, the importance of sample size
Control groups, how to filter out the extraneous factors
How to read a scientific report with a bullshit detector
Science is not down to some mad genius in a basement
Writing equations on a blackboard that no one else understands
There is a place for that, but it’s embedded in a vast social enterprise
Modern science is a product of the printing press
And the telegraph and the telephone and the radio and the internet
Every advance in mass communication
Is a leap in our ability to learn from experience
Not just our own, but other people’s too
That’s what science is – a systematic way of doing this
Scientific knowledge is a social creation
And as long as society is a battleground
Between the rich and the poor
Science will be a battleground too
They say truth is the first casualty of war
But if you’re fighting for a lie, you’ve already lost
So if you want to make a better world
If you’re serious about revolution
If you want to be a soldier in the army of human liberation
You must become a scientist
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