Political activation

… all forms of knowledge are implicated in political structures in one way or another. If the people who actually have expertise in that form of knowledge are not the ones activating it politically, then someone else is going to do it for them.

– Curtis Dozier, publisher of Pharos. Source of quote here.

Scientists communicating their work to the people is a way for them to take control of the narrative such that they can guide it the way they want it to go, they way they think it should go. But this is a small component of the larger idea of science stewardship. Without stewards – who can chaperone scientific knowledge through corridors of power as much as they can through the many streams of public dialogue – science, even if just the label, is going to be appropriated by “someone else” to be activated politically unto their ends. When the “someone else” is also bound to an enthno-nationalistic ideology, science is doomed.