Dutch public broadcaster NPO paid special attention to science under fire in the US this week. Several broadcasts on radio and TV took a closer look at how this could affect scientists and citizens worldwide. Some excerpts from the sobering radio interview NIAS director Jan Willem Duyvendak gave on NPO Radio 1 on March 12:
“All pillars of our democratic society must be autonomous and stand on their own. Just as politics must stand on its own, science must stand on its own, as well as the judiciary and the free press.
If politics starts acting as the boss against these other pillars, it is absolutely at the expense of democracy. It is telling that radical right-wing politicians shout unkind things about judges, that they merely represent an opinion. And shout about science: that’s just an opinion. Then you politicise everything and disregard scientists’ own way of arriving at knowledge and how judges arrive at their judgements. Then politics becomes all-important.”
Listen to the whole interview here.
