[CogSci] Support our Science (SOS2025)

[Barbara Landau]

To members of the Cognitive Science Society:

The message below has been crafted by a dedicated group of colleagues in the psychological and cognitive sciences, urging all citizens to support our science.  The text of the message is pasted below along with a list of Ways to Take Action (links included).

SOS2025: Support Our Science

American science is at risk. Action is needed!

The values of science – openness to new ideas, free exploration, commitment to reason and objectivity – are fundamental to the project of America. Science benefits every aspect of our lives – business, agriculture, law, medicine, education, engineering and technology, manufacturing, and the military. For the past 80 years, the federal government has invested in science, with enormous benefits to our country and to the larger world. Diseases have been eradicated, life expectancy expanded, new technologies and commercial products have been developed, and opportunities for economic growth and national security enhanced.

The private sector alone could not achieve these advances, and the scientists trained at universities and medical centers are an essential component of the engine that drives our economy. Long-term federal investments have shaped American prosperity and established American science as the envy of the world. Merit-based science, drawing on talented and creative minds with innovative ideas, is cumulative, sometimes taking decades of committed work to produce bodies of verifiable knowledge yielding visible benefits – inventions that fuel our economy, breakthroughs that save lives, and tools that enhance learning and creativity. Wholesale cuts to science funding put our economy and our national security at risk.

Many Americans are concerned about ongoing events in Washington that are already damaging science. See the list below for some positive actions we each can take before it is too late for our leadership in science, our economy, and security to recover.

Thank you,
Citizens Concerned about Science

________________________________________________________

Ways to Take Action

SOS2025: Support Our Science

1. Leave a phone message for your senators https://www.senate.gov/general/resources/pdf/senators_phone_list.pdf

2. Leave a phone message for your representative https://clerk.house.gov/member_info/TTD-119.pdf

3. Connect with the broader scientific community
Union of Concerned Scientists
https://www.ucsusa.org/ https://www.ucsusa.org/take-action/save-science-save-lives

4. Go to a Local or DC March 7 Standupforscience protest https://bsky.app/profile/standupforscience.bsky.social

5. Tell your story. Describe a project from your lab; how your business/farm/community benefits from science; how medical science has helped you or your family

a. Write a letter to the editor or an opinion piece for local paper https://sciencehomecoming.com/

b. Volunteer for interview with local print, radio, TV or social media journalist

c. Post a video about your support of science

d. Send a copy/link to your story to your Senators (The Honorable [Name], United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510 or to find

your Senator https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm and/or Representative https://ziplook.house.gov/htbin/findrep_house

e. Leave a phone message or send a short note expressing support for science or send a copy of/link to your story to one or more members of the relevant subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee (group that regulates expenditures of money by US government):  Both Democrat and Republican members listed at: https://democrats- appropriations.house.gov/subcommittees/commerce-justice-science-and-related-<http://appropriations.house.gov/subcommittees/commerce-justice-science-and-related-> agencies-119th-congress

6. Find useful facts. For example, NIH funding by state, can be found at unitedformedicalresearch.org<http://unitedformedicalresearch.org> and NIH Awards by Location & Organization (under Sources on same webpage) for examples of specific projects. Consider the impact of cuts to science support to your family, community, or state.

7. Donate to organization litigating relevant cases Democracy Docket

https://www.democracydocket.com/

Public Citizen Litigation Group

https://www.citizen.org/about/staff/about-public-citizen-litigation-group/

Democracy Forward

https://democracyforward.org/

State Democracy Defenders Fund

https://statedemocracydefenders.org/fund/

American Civil Liberties Union

https://www.aclu.org/

8. Check out organizations that promote action Indivisible
https://indivisible.org/

MoveOn

https://front.moveon.org/

These are only suggestions, and you may have other ideas for action-- individual actions can add up to a powerful unified message.






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