UM scientists, students rally to support science funding

Laura Lundquist

(Missoula Current) The University of Montana science programs are top-notch, but they might not be able to offer students the same opportunities without continued national support and funding.

UM scientists and students joined thousands across the nation Friday in standing up for science. On Friday, around 400 UM students, researchers and current and past professors gathered in front of University Hall to hear noted scientists laud the benefits of science and then march around the Oval carrying protest signs and chanting pro-science slogans in the midday sun.

Rally co-organizer and microbiologist Scott Samuels, expert on the bacteria associated with Lyme disease, thanked the crowd for coming to support science and celebrate their 1st Amendment rights to free speech and to assemble. He harkened back to 2017, when he attended the first March for Science in Washington, D.C., which was organized in response to policy changes and budget cuts initiated during the first Trump administration.

“It poured torrential rain. But we marched with thousands and thousands of soaking wet people to the capital. And right now, today, there are Stand Up for Science rallies and events around the world. So we’re together with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of concerned people like you standing up for science,” Samuels said, eliciting cheers from the crowd.

Friday’s rally was part of a nationwide event organized in more than 30 U.S. cities, many of them university towns, to show politicians and the Trump administration that many Americans value science and all the advances it provides, from medicines to pollution control, from computer models to agricultural improvements. Other rallies in Montana were scheduled in Hamilton, Bozeman, Billings and Helena.

Samuels said UM was an appropriate location for such a rally since Montana is home to so many important scientific facilities that contribute to the state’s economy. Facilities that depend on federal research funding include the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton; the Rocky Mountain Research Station, which includes the National Genomics Center for Wildlife and Fish Conservation, in Missoula; the McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls, which researches Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases; and all the state universities.

“In Montana, we have an oversized step on this for (the size of) our population. It’s really a major part of our economy here, this federally funded science,” Samuels said.

Len Broberg, Environmental Studies professor emeritus, said science is essential to the American way of life. He listed eight ways that science has made things better, particularly in Western Montana, including helping the town of Libby recover from asbestos contamination and cleaning mine waste from the Clark Fork River. Science has improved the safety of drinking water and reduced the risks posed by wastewater. Scientists were able to learn why bald eagles were dying out more than 50 years ago and then used science to bring them back.

“Clearly, science benefits us all in our daily lives. Each application of science depends on basic science developing the knowledge of how nature and the universe work,” Borberg said. “It’s not always clear what scientific lines of research will end up being productive. For that reason, we need to support all science as critical to our future.”

Organic chemist Andrea Stierle gave the crowd a quick history of key scientists who pursued lines of investigation that weren’t very popular in their day and thus faced persecution. Men like Copernicus and Galileo didn’t accept that the Earth was the center of the universe. Charles Darwin dared propose that humans evolved from the common ancestor they share with other apes. Even when the research topic wasn’t controversial, some scientists - women or nonwhite researchers - had to overcome societal biases to make their own discoveries. Without them, the giants of science, we might not have discovered penicillin, radiation, DNA or the harms of DDT when we did, Stierle said.

“But we are also akin to these people. And there are people in this audience today that will be the giants that future generations will stand on, given the chance, given the funding. You young people have the chance to come up with amazing things. You deserve the chance to be those giants. And so we march for science,” Stierle said.

Chemist Christopher Palmer listed some of the work he’s been able to do, thanks to federal funding from the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He’s worked with Alaskan researchers to improve air quality for Missoula, Libby and Fairbanks, Alaska; and he’s also studied the effects that wildfire emissions have on air quality. Other researchers are developing ways to study the carbon dioxide uptake of oceans to learn how it affects ocean chemistry and climate change. The instruments they developed are now being manufactured in Missoula.

“These sorts of examples are repeated over and over again locally, regionally and nationally.  The U.S. is the envy of the world in terms of scientific research infrastructure, developments and outcomes. That’s because of the public funding that we’ve put into scientific research and scientific education in this country. To reverse this now would be a huge mistake,” Palmer said.

Palmer bemoaned those Americans who have a distrust of science and scientists. But while it’s one thing to be a skeptic, it’s another to accuse scientists of making things up, like some of the conspiracies that arose during the pandemic.

“As scientists, what we do is try to understand the world and communicate our understanding of the world to others so others can use that to develop policy and a good quality of life. So it’s offensive to us to be accused of trying to use our knowledge in some way to take away people’s freedoms,” Palmer said. “We see that playing out in the current political climate. Those who distrust science and scientists and deny inconvenient truths about public health and global climate have taken the reins and they would prefer to defund and ignore science.”

Palmer said scientists have a responsibility to do good work but especially now, they also have a responsibility to engage those who have lost trust in science. He encouraged the crowd to contact their politicians to encourage them to support science funding but to also reach out to neighbors and remind them of the good science provides, from clean air to good-tasting beer.

In mid-February, the National Institutes of Health slashed billions of dollars in medical research around the country. It also announced it was cutting payments toward overhead costs for research institutions that receive its grants, a policy that could leave universities with major budget gaps. Currently, some universities receive 50% or more of the amount of a grant to put toward support staff and other needs, but that would be capped at 15%.

In late February, UM scientists published a public letter detailing what could be lost if funding cuts go forward. It’s estimated that one-third of UM revenue comes from federal funding and more than 100 faculty and 5oo staff are at risk.

Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.