Last Pictures from the March

Here information on how the March for Science got started:

Three months ago, a member of the social-network website Reddit saw the headline for this Jan. 20 Vice article: “All References to Climate Change Have Been Deleted From the White House Website.” That did not sit well with Reddit user Beaverteeth92, who commented, “There needs to be a Scientists' March on Washington.”

Jonathan Berman, a University of Texas Health Science Center postdoctoral fellow, spotted the comment and created a Facebook page, The Washington Post reported in January. As the Facebook page grew — it now has more than 530,000 likes — the March for Science was born. Marches will take place on Saturday in Washington and hundreds of other cities.

I think this sums up pretty well just how unusual this march was:

“The march is pretty unprecedented in terms of the scale and breadth of the scientific community that’s involved, and it does recall Physicians for Social Responsibility and various scientific groups against nuclear war in the Reagan era, that’s I think the most recent precedent,” said Robert Proctor, a professor of the history of science at Stanford University. “But this is even broader in the sense that there’s a broader perception of a massive attack on sacred notions of truth that are sacred to the scientific community.”

“The current concerns, and let’s say movement, on the parts of many, many scientists and other citizens — and the movements of the current administration — those really do feel pretty unusual,” added David Kaiser, a historian of science at MIT. “And if they’re not completely brand new under the sun, they do feel like a pretty big swing.”