The title is from the tagline for tomorrow’s March for Science. Although Santa Cruz has one, my husband and I are going to San Jose for the Silicon Valley version, which ends at an outdoor exhibition of SV Comic Con.

I was reminded of the need for the march while listening to radio interview with Lori Garver, deputy administrator of NASA under President Obama. She was clearly proud of the extent to which the Obama administration promoted private industry in space, and concerned that the Trump administration is not doing that.

She stated that the US is a “capitalist country” in which the government should not “interfere” with potential profit centers for industry. Those are not the words of a scientist. The profit factor is what puts industry in direct opposition to science. Independent labs (rare in this country today) and government-funded research are the only venues for practicing true science, which is undirected and shared.

What profit is there from sending probes and rovers to explore uninhabited planets and moons? Eventual extractive industries or settlements on those sites are uncertain and far in the future. Yet we have learned a tremendous amount that could advance those goals eventually, and even more about planetary formation and characteristics. We’ve also learned a lot about propulsion, maneuvering, and landing.

Space flight discoveries are sometimes found to be useful on Earth. Not Teflon, which was actually invented before the Apollo program. But real examples include those shiny blankets for marathon runners and accident victims; winglets on the ends of airplane wings, which increase thrust and reduce drag; more efficient solar panels; essential fatty acids from human breast milk that are produced by algae, and now added to baby food; the air cells in Nike Airs; and precise lasers used in heart surgery, originally developed to monitor gases in our atmosphere.

In science, no one knows in advance whether any particular investigation could lead to commercial products, or what those might be. Industry always starts with a plan to develop a product it can sell. Does commercial product development ever benefit science? I would say no, just shareholders.

Which leads to another point: government-based research, unless classified, belongs to all people and is shared with all scientists. This is the great strength of science, as one person’s investigation gives someone else a different idea. One of the sad results of burgeoning university/industry collaboration is cutting off this information flow. Another is a storm of biased results; Science Friday today estimated 20% of juried articles contain false information.

A common question on the science news shows these days is, Why isn’t someone developing a new antibiotic? The reason is simple: the antibiotic humanity needs is one that will be used rarely, so microorganisms won’t develop resistance to it. It absolutely can’t be sold to Big Ag, or given to every schoolchild with a sniffle, or used in commercial toothpaste. So Big Pharma has no interest in developing it.

NIH could, if we were willing to fund it.