Mental Health Dialogue: 2017 Edition (part 2)

Note: this post is a response in a dialogue between Chemjobber and I on grad school and its effects on mental health. Yesterday's post can be found here.

Dear Chemjobber:

I had to do a double take at the calendar when you mentioned we were due for a refresh of this conversation on mental health in graduate school. But, somehow, lo and behold—it's 2017.

For me, things have been mostly good. My grad school projects ended up coming out of seeming oscillation into something resembling a stable thesis (bio updated to "Vinylogous was a graduate student..."). Add that on to a bunch of "life" events, and that's my 2015-2016.

Graduate school can be (and was) stressful, but so is the world beyond, I guess. For all the faults of our pressure cooker academia, it can be a source of insulation or distraction from alternate stresses (e.g. job market uncertainty, figuring out how healthcare works when you're not on an assistantship, dealing with the consequences of everyone you know aging, etc.). And some of those grad school stresses, it seems, do carry over, too.

All in all, I might do it again if I had to go back. But let's talk.

The state of things

You asked how the field has progressed:

How are we doing? I think academia might be doing better than two years ago about these issues, but I'm not sure. What do you think?

Has the mountain been nudged? As you might guess from that, I'm not really sure that much has changed, on a grand scale, in chemistry graduate education itself in the last four years.

I don't think individual departments are likely do so much without concerted pressure. Take for instance, the clamors for safety reform around Patrick Harran's tragically negligent supervision of Sheri Sangji. In 2014, prior to the resolution of the corresponding court case, departments were pretending to care more about safety—getting professors and students more actively involved in formulating solutions, giving lip service to "task force" initiatives, etc.

But of course, when Harran was able to escape a guilty plea and pay less than two weeks' salary as a token gesture to a burn center, departments realized that they weren't going to be held responsible, and they quietly dropped the matter. (Maybe not all departments, granted.)

Mental health is going to be similar. I don't see a clear path going forward that would encourage change. There's a massive collective action problem that still persists. And it's even trickier than chemical safety—there's more vagueness, less accountability, fewer particularized harms.

What have I seen? I haven't noticed much systemic change on the side of departments or PIs themselves. I did see a few individual PIs get mellower and more understanding—but over the course of five years, that can happen anyway.

I also did see someone announce on social media very recently that they were leaving graduate school, and in particular, they said their advisor's management syle was abusive. I don't know that you would be as likely to see that said publicly 5-10 years ago.

I've also noticed a few people announce their decisions to leave grad school for other options (career changes or MS-level chemistry jobs). Reassuringly, the reception to those people on social media from peers, family, and friends has been very supportive. So if there is judgment, it is largely silent judgment. For what it's worth, I think this is important—the broader recognition that change is OK, the grad school system is flawed and exhausting, and everyone's got their own path to pursue.

Mark that down as "somewhat optimistic."

Blaming the screen

You asked how modern distractions might impact the daily grind:

Distractions: Do you think our modern times are responsible for some of the mental health difficulties that graduate students face? I don't think I was a paragon of mindfulness or presence in graduate school, but I think today's graduate student faces an array of distractions that are an order of magnitude larger than anything I faced. [. . .] I wonder if it’s something that contributes to deadline-related stress and stress that we might feel in graduate school? How did you deal with it towards the end of your time in graduate school?

This is a really interesting point. It's definitely a concern in grad school—some PIs go so far as to explicitly dictate in their group manual that there is to be no social media access during the day, among other approaches.

Truthfully, the instant gratification of the small miracle screens we carry around does make things harder. I often found it hard to get through close reading of long articles without impulsively pulling up Twitter every couple paragraphs.

But I wonder if these distractions are supply-side or demand-side (I suppose I mean—do today's sources and devices create distraction or merely serve as an outlet for distraction?)

For perspective, I've often tried to remedy my own distractedness by locking away my phone, or simply self-imposing a no-phone rule. Usually, though, after a while I find myself getting lost in other thoughts, snapping out of that to realize I've been mechanically skimming paragraphs. I remember having that same daydreaming-while-reading experience before I had a cell phone. (Maybe humans haven't really evolved to sit and read long texts).

So I'm not totally convinced that technology is a huge amplifier of distractedness. It might be. But maybe it's just a particularly visible outlet that highlights how easily distracted we are. I think it's mostly just convenient and comforting to reassure ourselves that we'd be so much more productive without today's distractions.

(I'm also generally skeptical of the borderline anti-millennial "back in my day..." wistful sentiments that seem to get tossed around in some spheres about the moral and work-ethic superiority of all adults north of 40).

As for how I've personally managed to conquer distractions? I haven't. Still a struggle. And definitely still a source of stress in my current position, as it was in grad school (to me, it seems that other people are much more adept at quickly digesting information, retaining it, and finishing things on deadline. Maybe they aren't--maybe that's related to the whole problem of being unable to objectively compare oneself to others--but it does feel that way).

That being said: to minimize the distraction of minutiae (i.e. all those pesky details in lab that are immediately important for today's experiment but undoubtedly distracting in terms of being able to think creatively or long-term), I think it was really helpful to (1) minimize weekends in the lab (even if your weekdays get busier; and (2) go on long drive on the highway a lot--several hours in the car without anything to do but think can be more productive than one might think.

The elusiveness of objective foresight 

You asked how we should be looking at the decision to leave grad school:

The “I Quit” Series: [. . .] I learned so much. I wasn’t surprised at how much people didn’t like graduate school (I think the people who really enjoy it are relatively rare), but I was surprised at how happy people were to have left. I haven’t made a solid count, but of the people who wrote in, most of them answered the question “Are you happy you left?” with a resounding “yes.” [. . .] I wish I had some way of forcing graduate students to confront the question of “should I leave?” with some kind of rational test. [. . .] What do you think? Are we looking at this wrong? Should we be encouraging people to stay no matter what? (Do graduate students need more ‘grit and determination’?)

Anecdotally, at least, I think more people who leave grad school are—if you ask them a year down the road--happy to have done so than are unhappy.

I saw more instances of this in the last few years than I expected. There were, interestingly, a spectrum of reasons-to-leave (ranging from voluntary to not) but also a spectrum of PI reactions (including one who was both understanding and supportive, and another who made his student's life as miserable as conveniently possible). But they're all (seemingly) happier now.

I think we can (as a community) probably emphatically agree at this point that (1) grad school is not everything; (2) too many people go to grad school, and you need to really want it; (3) no one knows going in quite what they're getting into; and (4) it's OK to leave grad school if it's not what you want to do.

I think we've also (as a community) had great discussions of alternatives and career options.

I think, moreover, that we (as a community) have increasingly brought up the stresses and downsides of grad school—the nebulousness, the power dynamics, the understated role of serendipity in success and failure, the disconnectedness.

I've also talked about the above to a lot of students who were either considering applying to grad school or who were visiting on recruiting weekends.

But I don't think a single one of them took my advice. (This relates to your desire for a rational self-imposed test).

It's a little puzzling. Given broader exposure to grad school problems, shouldn't fewer people be going to grad school? (Maybe there are—I don't have a handle on the exact numbers, but my impression is that the ranks of scientific PhD students are as full as ever).

My impression is that as humans we all suffer from profoundly terrible objective foresight. ("Maybe it'll be different for me," we think. It usually isn't, of course). And that's part of the grad-school-mental-health problem. The only people who might realistically make a substantial change (grad students themselves, acting en masse) are only in the system for a few years, and those there for longer (PIs and administration) have little to gain from changing anything.

Some structural changes in grad school might change this. Take grad student unionization, for instance. That, of course, is controversial, and it's far from obvious that it would fix this problem. (One common criticism is that it would turn the grad student/advisor relationship from cooperative to adversarial; but I think one has to be somewhat naive to think it's that simple, or that there aren't many adversarial relationships already).

Let's get political

So far (in this and prior dialogues), we've largely focused on: (1) graduate programs themselves; (2) the internal struggles of graduate students; or (3) finding support outside graduate school. I don't think we've much considered the role of some really external concerns—namely, current events and politics. And grad student participation in politics.

First, there's no reason that someone can't be politically involved or politically active and not also be a fantastic scientist. That should go without saying, but "politically active" often conjures up images of incivility and frothing at the mouth, but I think that's a stereotype used to deride those with the gumption to care about things that aren't just silica gel and transition metals.

Second, we're in an interesting time where there's a push for scientists to get more involved in politics (see, e.g., the still-contentious March for Science, or Prof. Michael Eisen's announced bid for Senate).

But why does it matter?

Grad students are enormously focused on narrow things. Even when focused broadly on a scientific sense, they tend to pour tons of energy into science. And as previously discussed, if they take the time to have an outside interest (say, soccer or politics) it's derided. But, of course, we all live in a broader world that organic chemistry plays only a minuscule role in. Sometimes there are graduate students and professors who are active in political advocacy and social justice. But from experience, this often (and unfortunately) elicits mockery from co-workers.

Political apathy, of course, is a luxury for the privileged who don't stand to have much taken away from them. (This class includes professors, who as much as they might gripe about funding, tend to have relatively secure jobs at largely tolerant institutions with typically diverse populations).

This here is only a qualitative observation, of course. But fields like law and medicine have graduate experiences with difficult study and long hours, like chemistry grad school. But in either, you tend to see more devotion to external, broad, society-level causes. (That's probably somewhat related to the nature of the work itself, of course). And there's stresses on mental health there, too, but I think they're largely different in kind. I do wonder if increased encouragement or acceptance of grad student political involvement (let's call it "public policy involvement" for those who sneeze at the word "political") might help foster a feeling of empowerment, or at least attenuate the nihilistic jadedness that you can smell when you walk some chemistry department halls.

It's difficult to clearly articulate the reasons for graduate student political involvement, I guess. But I do wonder if it would be a good thing (maybe as an extension of it being a good thing for grad students to have outside interests in general). What are your thoughts, Chemjobber? I'm interested in your take on whether graduate students would benefit by being more active in this area (isn't that in the spirit of "Broader Impacts?").

I also wonder about political involvement by professors. There's some prominent examples of quite conservative or libertarian chemistry professors, for instance, and I've always wondered the effects, if any, on their students (I hope there's very little)—especially when I see a Tweet that's arguably misogynistic or racist. These professors often, nonetheless, have fairly gender-balanced or racially-diverse groups. I wonder if that ever spills over... do students feel they aren't getting a fair shake when their politics don't align with their PI? Or are we good enough at compartmentalizing that we can separate that sphere from the work sphere, and just get our work done without it mattering? (I hope the latter).

And have you seen the news lately?

I also do wonder about how current events will shape the grad school experience going forward (and by extension, the stresses involved). Namely:

Healthcare "reform". A lot of grad students are on their parents' healthcare or a university insurance plan, but not all. But with the climate in Washington, it's conceivable to see coverage for mental health services shrink.

Funding cuts. A look at the planned 2018 budget reveals a $31 billion cut to the NIH, along with multi-billion-dollar cuts to the NSF and DOE's Office of Science. I can't see this having a positive effect on graduate student life.

The public and science. This isn't entirely new, of course, but the public seems to have a growing distrust for experts. Along with a political climate that seems to be gripped by a strong anti-intellectual movement, I wonder how decreased public faith in scientists and academics will shake out, and perhaps if universities will see even less support, requiring higher pressure on pools of students to produce work. (Related, perhaps, to funding cuts).

Wage and hiring freezes. Of course, there was the postdoc salary debacle and the federal hiring freeze. Neither are good, on their face, for postdocs (and misfortune often trickles downhill). Are we seeing more difficult career ladders for grad students?

Immigration and the Trump administration. This one is particularly worrisome. I had tons of great foreign colleagues in graduate school. Many of those people are having trouble finding jobs. Or they're dealing with an increasingly loud and vicious public discourse demonizing immigrants or demonizing Muslims. In essence, a graduate student who is foreign or Muslim is being subjected to all the normal mental health stresses of grad school but with the added ingredient of broad-scale xenophobia. (It's worth pointing out that in the recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision refusing to stay a preliminary injunction against the administration's de facto Muslim ban, the plight of foreign graduate students and professors played a central role in demonstrating the damage done by the order).

Anyway, not to leave this on a sour note, but I wonder what other recent or upcoming events might signal good or bad times ahead for graduate students and postdocs. (Or maybe nothing will really change at all).


Regards,

Vinylogous

Opinions on opinions on science's influence on opinions' influence on science

A post at NewStatesman by guest editors Brian Cox (British particle physicist and science popularizer) and Robin Ince (comedian/writer) highlights the danger of political controversies in undermining public trust in science. It's been responded to several times (read this or this or this or this or this), but it's worth pointing out some key passages.

Cox and Ince begin by contrasting pre-Internet times to modern times, which illustrates an important difference in how the public perceives science (bold emphasis mine):

The story of the past hundred years is one of unparalleled human advances, medically, technologically and intellectually. The foundation for these changes is the scientific method. In every room in your house, there are innovations that in 1912 would have been considered on the cusp of magic. The problem with a hundred years of unabated progress, however, is that its continual nature has made us blasé. We expect immediate hot water, 200 channels of television 24 hours a day, and the ability to speak directly to anyone anywhere in the world any time via an orbiting network of spacecraft. Any less is tantamount to penury. Where once the arrival of a television in a street or the availability of international flight would have been greeted with excitement and awe, and the desire to understand how those innovations came into being, it is now expected that every three months you’ll be queuing outside the Apple store for a new wafer-thin slab of brushed metal, blithely unaware that watching a movie in the palm of your hand has been made possible only through improbable and hard-won leaps in the understanding of the quantum behaviour of electrons in silicon.

It's pointed and true. We have more technology now than ever before; scientists even within disciplines are unable to explain it to each others (how many organic chemists, for instance, have a grasp of how LCDs, which are built on small molecules, work?). There's more to know -- more availability of wonderment -- than ever before, but given how common electronic devices are, it's easier to use them than to try to understand them.

The authors describe nature as an "arbiter above opinion." They quote Feynman with the assertion that if an opinion or guess conflicts with the available evidence, it is wrong.

The assertion is surely uncontroversial, but implementing it can be prohibitively difficult, primarily because it demands that everything be subordinate to evidence. Accepting this is fraught with cultural difficulty, because authority in general rests with grandees, gods, or more usually some inseparable combination of the two. Even in a secular democracy, a fundamental tenet of the system is that politicians are elected to reflect and act upon the opinions of the people, or are at least given temporary authority by the people to act upon their own. Science is a framework with only one absolute: all opinions, theories and “laws” are open to revision in the face of evidence. It should not be seen or presented, therefore, as a body of inviolate knowledge against which policy should be judged; the effect of this would be to replace one priesthood with another. Rather, science is a process, a series of structures that allow us, in as unbiased a way as possible, to test our assertions against Nature.

Cox and Ince then offer up climate change denialism as an example. From their piece:

The loud criticism of climate science is motivated in the main not by technical objections, but by the difficult political choices with which it confronts us. This is important, because there must be a place where science stops and politics begins, and this border is an extremely complex and uncomfortable one. Science can’t tell us what to do about our changing climate. It can only inform us that it is changing (this is a statement based on data) and tell us the most probable reasons for this given the current state of our understanding. For a given policy response, it can also tell us how likely that response is to be effective, to the best of our understanding. The choice of policy response itself is not a purely scientific question, however, because it necessarily has moral, geopolitical and economic components.

The key passage, I think, is this one, which comes near the end of the article (bold emphasis mine):

Science is the framework within which we reach conclusions about the natural world. These conclusions are always preliminary, always open to revision, but they are the best we can do. It is not logical to challenge the findings of science unless there are specific, evidence-based reasons for doing so. Elected politicians are free to disregard its findings and recommendations. Indeed, there may be good reasons for doing so. But they must understand in detail what they are disregarding, and be prepared to explain with precision why they chose to do so. It is not acceptable to see science as one among many acceptable “views”. Science is the only way we have of exploring nature, and nature exists outside of human structures.

Yes!

Though several of the responses to the piece have been negative, with respondents misreading the piece as an insistence that science and politics be divorced of each other, Jon Butterworth at The Guardian agrees with Cox and Ince and attempts to clarify the argument:

My reading of Cox and Ince is that they argue that the boundary between these cases, tricky though it can be, should be kept as clear as possible. This is not a claim for the supremacy of science, nor complete separation between science and politics, but is an attempt to direct political debate to the areas where it can be fruitful.

I don't see any suggestion there that science is, or can be, separate from politics. Not only are scientific results important input to political debate - often setting the boundary conditions of what is known to be possible - but politics at all levels influences the science we do. Taking examples from my own experience - CERN was set up with political as well scientific goals, to raise the level of European cooperation in an important science area - "Bringing nations together through science". The European Space Agency is explicit about having the political and economic goal of supporting the European aerospace industry, yet enables enormous amounts of science. The decisions as to what experiments are done are often influenced by politics, ranging from office to inter-governmental level. Suppression of results and cherry picking, as discussed for example in Ben Goldacre's books, are explicitly political, moral and economic issues. The progress of science is also potentially warped by journals, by funding reviews and by appointment panels. But progress it does, nevertheless. The evidence is all around you.

Agreement all around. Head-in-the-sand denials that politics has (or should have) any influence on scientific practice, or that science has (or should have) any influence on public policy are misguided. As a society, we need to be able to recognize what is political ideology and what is scientific truth/fact so that we can harness science to best influence policy and the public welfare. Science can't, and shouldn't, be separated from politics, but politics shouldn't be the bird droppings on the Windshield of the Car of Science that make it hard to see while at the wheel.

One of my favorite comments comes from a user named TheBabelFish, who offered this response to Butterworth's piece:

We have made specialists of our politicians. The career path is inexorable. They spend their entire careers learning to play the game of politics, how to get elected, how to spin stories, events, even facts, to their own advantage. It's a system that is very good at turning out politicians, but very bad at turning out leaders. 

If scientific data, to pluck a random example wildly out of the air, requires a 'hard sell,' persuading the electorate to make a sacrifice, then they won't do it. They just won't. They've been trained, in their speciality of politics, never to give the public bad news if it can possibly be avoided.

It's a good point. A symptom of our political system; with a dearth of scientists in government (they're trained as specialists in something else, after all), I don't see an easy cure.

Chemists who do other things

At Just Like Cooking, See Arr Oh pointed out John Kuhn, an NFL player with a chemistry degree and some internships under his belt.

Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV.
Source: Wikipedia.

What other prominent folks have had chemistry degrees?

Actor and martial artist Dolph Lundgren, of Rocky IV fame, has both a bachelor's and master's degree in chemical engineering. Frank Capra, director of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", had a chemical engineering degree as well. Ally Walker, who starred in the 1990s drama Profiler, originally intended to be a scientist or doctor and holds a biochemistry degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Iron Man co-star Terrence Howard at one point wanted to be a science teacher and was reportedly three credits short of a chemistry degree.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Source: Wikipedia.

Several political leaders have chemistry degrees. Margaret Thatcher is one example, as she studied X-ray crystallography and worked briefly as a research chemist (however, she clashed with the Royal Society and is not remembered fondly by many British scientists). Germany's Chancellor is Angela Merkel, who has a doctorate in physical chemistry. In the United States, John M. Deutch is a physical chemist who held prominent political positions in the Clinton Administration, including being the Director of Central Intelligence. Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann, developed the ABE (acetone-butanol-ethanol) process to produce the three chemicals by fermentation of starch. Additionally, Ignacy Mościcki was a physical chemistry professor who was a president of Poland.

Russian composer Borodin.
Source: Wikipedia.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a couple musicians. Alexander Borodin, the famed Romantic composer, was also a surgeon and a professor of chemistry. Borodin worked for Erlenmeyer and discovered the aldol contemporaneously to Wurtz (n.b. the timing of this is disputed). Bill Lipscomb was a 1976 Nobel Laureate and an avid clarinetist who befriended jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie. And Edward Elgar, the English composer of Pomp and Circumstance and Enigma Variations, was an avid amateur chemist who invented an apparatus for production of hydrogen sulfide.

Lastly, Drew, the author of webcomics Married to the Sea and Toothpaste for Dinner, writer of the hilarious blog The Worst Things for Sale, musician behind Crudbump and Kompressor, and novelist behind Veins, is a former industrial chemist.

How's the cure for AIDS coming?

Adam Ruben, contributor of the column Experimental Error for some little journal called Science as well as author of the book Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School, has posted this column about triviality in research. It's worth reading, both because it's funny and also because the frustration of "why am I doing this?" is common. It's common at smaller graduate departments, for sure, but even at the Big Universities where they solve Big Problems, there's lots of boring work. And the triviality leads grad students and onlookers to question why we're doing what we are. From the column:

"We’re accused of wasting money, wasting time. Spending 15 years on compounds that no human will ever likely inject or ingest. Studying the dusty corners of the universe but neglecting the bigger picture. Bear DNA. Shrimp on treadmills. The mating habits of screwworms. Writing our obscure little papers in our obscure little journals, blind to the fact that our research will only elucidate the trivial, or, even worse, the obvious. 

Now that the question has been asked, I see this attitude everywhere. Comedians say things like: “This week, scientists at Johns Hopkins University published a study proving that straight men enjoy looking at breasts. Do we really need a study for that?” Or Jay Leno’s snarky reply to research he deems unimportant: “Scientists at UCLA announced they have developed a unicycle for squirrels. Hey guys—how’s that cure for AIDS coming?” 

And that’s where I feel conflicted. Because a part of me acknowledges, sensibly, that a squirrel unicycle is a waste of time and money (though probably darn cute). But another part gets mad, wanting to yell at the TV, “We’re not all working on cures for AIDS, dumbass!” 

Then the first part asks the second part, “Um … why aren’t you?” 

Our kneejerk reflex—and also the usual response of scientific authorities when confronted with a claim that some bit of research is trivial—is to counter that our accuser just doesn’t understand how science works. What if every scientist had been forced to justify his or her wacky-sounding research? 

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek: “Well, I’m looking through pieces of glass at thin slices of cork.” 

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s Backwards and Anachronistic Uncle Who Likes AM Talk Radio and Reruns of 7th Heaven: “Hey Antonie, how’s that cure for bodily humor imbalance in black bile coming?”"

The comments from Jay Leno types he points out remind me of Eric Cantor's YouCut Citizen Review (or as it might be better called, Eric Cantor's Intellectual Crime against Humanity). It's a definite problem in science--the idea that taxpayers, as the source of funding, are also the best ones to judge if research is worthwhile. Are they? (Spoiler: no, they aren't).

Anyhow, read the column. And read his other stuff. It's good.

Science "Leadership" in Congress

It's common for prominent scientists or scientist/politicians (i.e. Bill Foster) to decry the lack of scientists in the US Congress. This lamentation is understandable, given the increasing dependence of our society on science-based issues (energy policy, climate change, reproductive rights, healthcare, STEM education, information freedom, telecommunications, biomedical research, pollution, and environmental regulation, to name a few).

The prospective leadership of the House Science Committee highlights this need.

This month, the House Republican Steering Committee will decide which of the members of the newly elected 113th Congress will lead each of the House’s committees, including the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, come January.

There are three contenders for the chairman position: Lamar Smith (R-TX), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI). The Committee has jurisdiction over several agencies chemists may be familiar with, including but not limited to NSF, NIST, NASA, the USGS, the DoE, EPA, NOAA, and ATSDR, and the power of the committee corresponds to large millions of dollars in funding. This is the same committee that included (until his recent defeat) Todd Akin (R-MO) and still includes just-reelected Paul Broun (R-GA), an M.D. (with, embarrassingly enough, a B.S. in chemistry) who this year denounced "evolution and embryology and the big bang theory" as "lies straight from the pit of Hell" (read more of what he said if you want to depress yourself a bit).

Current vice chair Jim Sensenbrenner, having served as the chair previously (1997-2001) isn’t likely to get the nomination. This will probably come as a relief to scientists, in light of Sensenbrenner’s public condemnation of the theory of anthropogenic climate change as “scientific fascism” and an “international conspiracy” and role in disbanding of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Policy. Lamar Smith has perhaps the most training in science of the three—he aspired to be a scientist at an early age but was deterred by a college introductory physics class. Dana Rohrabacher, an aggressively prominent climate change skeptic, stated in 2012: “my analysis is that in the global warming debate, [skeptics] won”. A paragraph later, he proclaimed “I love science.”

All three contenders are lawyers by training. The evaluation and use of scientific findings and allocation of funds should be – as scientists are taught but lawyers are loathe to accept – approached in as non-biased a way as possible. But the top leaders in the position to bolster or cripple our nation’s scientific abilities may not have objectivity at heart.

What to do? If we had more scientists or science-educated people go into politics the situation would probably improve.

But then again, Paul Broun has a chemistry degree.