March for Science Connecticut Demands Evidence-Based Policies

With rain coming down for the first hour of the event, protestors packed Mortensen Riverfront Plaza in Hartford on Earth Day to rally on behalf of science because we are now in a time when information about climate change is disappeared from the White House website.

Mary Sotos, Deputy Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection

Hartford’s action was one among the 610 satellite marches today around the globe; the main event was in Washington DC.

With the Connecticut River on one side and the Connecticut Science Center on the other, people stood umbrella-to-umbrella, listening to a lineup of speakers that included Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman and Trinity College President Joanne Berger-Sweeney, whose background is in Neuroscience. Berger-Sweeney, after speaking to her experience being the “first” at many stages of her career, went on to say that science is not just for the rich.

Alison Galvani, Director of Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling & Analysis, spoke of how travel bans and the current administrations backlash on immigration are damaging to science; many of the scientists in the United States come here from elsewhere and all six of the American Nobel Prize winners in economics and sciences were immigrants last year.

Another highlight from the dozen, give or take, speakers came in the form of a talk on critical thinking and the need to understand that evidence is more important than the anecdote, even if our culture might put more value on the latter.

Beyond the rally, the event provided activities for children, informational tables, and a voter registration booth.

The March for Science Connecticut’s mission statement is: “The March for Science champions publicly-funded and publicly-communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. We unite as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good, to celebrate the totality of our society that is affected by science, and to promote evidence-based policies in the public interest.”