Prologue
Nearly 1500 posts.
Over 300 contributors.
Worldwide readership.
Since its origin 15 years ago, Anole Annals has left its mark on anole researchers, reptile enthusiasts, and people curious about why these little tree lizards enchant so many of us. (Just go ahead and admit that’s a fair question!) Many posts on this blog create engaging summaries of the newest anole research, research that spans nearly every discipline of biology. But posts also include anole art, trip reports, and anole history. Anole Annals houses pages with stunning videos and classroom resources, which bring the beauty of anole biology to people outside of our established academic communities. Although the popularity of blogging has declined, the historical impact and reach of Anole Annals is undeniable.
When I made my first Anole Annals post in 2011, I thought that it was a good way to advertise my newest paper and to help establish my name in the field. But I was naïve at the time. 14 years of experience and added maturity have taught me the importance of communicating science to people outside of our immediate academic circles. Over that same timeframe, there has been a rise in anti-science propaganda and misinformation on social media that has eroded the strength of the American science apparatus. With the exception of people working in politically charged areas such as global change or vaccines, most scientists do not have training or experience in confronting attacks on science. We need to change this. We need to do it quickly.
Copied below is a blog post that I wrote to accompany a new Editorial that I published in Integrative and Comparative Biology. I argue that scientists need to step outside of our academic circles into formal and informal settings to rebuild public trust and enthusiasm in science. Our first task is to learn new and effective ways to communicate from professionals who excel at captivating audiences with diverse interests and backgrounds. I repost this here because Anole Annals has had incredible success reaching people from across academic and non-academic circles. I hope my post can bring new energy to Anole Annals and its efforts to disseminate the wonders of anole biology to wide audiences.
How Republican Support for Science Led to My Career as a Biologist
I grew up in a relatively poor, conservative family along the I-90 Rust Belt corridor of central New York in the 1980s and 1990s. My parents often worked multiple jobs to make our minimal ends meet. During the day, my father repaired boilers and pressed shirts at my Uncle John’s dry cleaning business as Rush Limbaugh played at full volume in the background. In the evenings, he worked as a boiler operator for a hospital until his body broke from strains of intense manual labor. My mother worked as a nurse before I was born, but I mainly remember her doing labor and service jobs. I enjoyed my science classes in school,* probably because I liked the outdoors as a kid. But an appreciation of science as a career path was not an inherent part of my upbringing. My parents emphasized that getting an education was my way to a more comfortable life, but they did not direct me to a particular major or career path. As manufacturing opportunities declined across the region, the expectation of attending college was a common sentiment for many kids of my generation from that area. Thus, despite my teenage adrenaline junky desire to become a smokejumper, my parents encouraged me to pursue a college education and sacrificed a great deal to put me through it. I am now a tenured professor at Loyola University Chicago.
Public perspectives on science have changed dramatically over the 80+ years of my parents’ lives. Science rose to prominence in the United States following World War II because of geopolitical competition. Publicly funded innovation and the rapid pace of scientific output were points of bipartisan national pride for the latter half of the 20th century! The US populace wanted to win the space race. The National Science Foundation’s budget surpassed $1 billion for the first time in 1983, under Republican Ronald Reagan, after his administration recognized that it was in the national interest to compete in a high-technology world. George H.W. Bush led the charge for the Global Change Research Act, which garnered 100-0 support in the Senate. The US population supported the development of new vaccines, antibiotics, and cures for disease, leading to the doubling of the NIH budget between 1998 and 2003. In 1999, Republican firebrand Newt Gingrich stated,
“The highest investment priority in Washington should be to double the federal budget for scientific research. No other federal expenditure would create more jobs and wealth or do more to strengthen our world leadership, protect the environment and promote better health and education for all Americans. For the security of our future, we must make this investment now.”
When my parents encouraged me to pursue education in science, they did not temper their advice with their political leanings. Science was not considered “woke” or a democratic conspiracy in the 1990s. Conservative leaders of the time were advocating for science because of its economic and competitive benefits to the national interest, a message that likely resonated deeply with my parents. They thought that a career in science was a secure path to a life better than the one they were living. Full stop.
Fast forward to 2025, and I am left wondering, “What the hell happened to this nation’s respect and support for science?” * Many Americans now question whether a college education is “worth it,” even though advanced education was the catalyst for the success of many people from my generation. Given the current political environment, it is difficult for me to imagine that my family would encourage my pursuit of a career in science today. In fact, my career has been a point of contention for us since 2016. It’s difficult for me to see this new generation of kids capable of undergoing the same socioeconomic transformation that led me to my current career.
This long introduction frames my motivation for the recent Editorial I wrote for Integrative and Comparative Biology. Since 
January 2025, the United States has witnessed the rapid acceleration of anti-science rhetoric and direct attacks on the scientific enterprise, following the blueprint laid out by the 900-page Project 2025. These attacks are more energized, pervasive, and combative than anything I have witnessed during my career. I feel an urgency to get more scientists engaged in public discourse and to update our educational systems to help students recognize propaganda and refute misinformation. The goal of my Editorial was to 1) contrast the ways that scientists communicate with the strategies that more communication-based professions use, and 2) to lower barriers for scientists to purposefully experiment with new communication strategies. The infographic to the right highlights the main points of the Editorial.
15 years ago, multiple organizations called for scientists to engage with the public and the policymaking process. Barbara A. Schaal, a biologist from Washington University in St. Louis and vice president of the National Academy of Sciences, stated, “We need to interact with the public for our good and the public good.” From my perspective, nothing in academic science changed following those calls. There are still few incentives to meaningfully engage with the public. Translating science for wide audiences may actively harm the ability of scientists to advance professionally, a phenomenon called the Sagan Effect. I am one of a growing number of scientists who are once again encouraging our colleagues to engage with society in meaningful and effective ways. Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and constitutional scholar Erica Chenowith argue that the scientific community needs to play a leading role in pushing back against the ongoing attacks on science and in defending democracy.
The academic and scientific community must grapple with its historical retraction from the public eye. Former bipartisan support for science made academic scientists complacent. A steady flow of funding allowed the incentive structure for academic positions to focus on scientific output (e.g., grants and high-profile papers), while a rise of anti-science rhetoric became entrenched in American culture. Although some scientists worked diligently as the public-facing voice of reason as special interests challenged consensus on climate change and vaccine efficiency, most academic scientists were casual observers as vast swaths of the American public and politicians became hostile to science and its mission. Science became wrapped up in the fervent American culture wars.
I firmly believe that more widespread and effective engagement with the public can help slow the destruction of the American scientific enterprise by changing public sentiment towards science and scientists. It will inject a new sense of trust and relevance into a discussion that is currently controlled by those spreading falsehoods and propaganda. For science to thrive as it did 25 years ago, we need to embrace public communication within formal and informal settings. Whether on our front porches, in local libraries, comedy shows, schools, science festivals, social media, radio shows, coffee shops, or bars, the first step in reestablishing the public’s favorable view of science begins with scientists being willing to step out of their lab groups and communicate with wider audiences.
The scientific community does not have the luxury of making quality science communication someone else’s problem. The scale of the ongoing assault on science is larger, better funded, and more coordinated than anything most living scientists have ever witnessed. The administration is reducing scientific expertise in the federal workforce, concealing data, clawing back funding, changing review systems, reducing funding opportunities, and challenging the budgeting and appropriations process. Programs to help young people become exposed to STEM career paths are being cut under the auspices that they promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. We must all act with a sense of purpose, intentionality, and urgency to maintain our scientific infrastructure so that the community can maintain the ability to address the forthcoming challenges facing future generations.
* Evolution was not taught in my high school biology classroom. I remember being told that we were to skip that unit, naïve to the reason why, until many years later. Yet, I went on to get my Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology.
** That answer to the complex question of shifting perspectives on science is addressed in detail in several books that are as informative as they are depressing: Science Under Siege (2025) and The War on Science (2016).
Epilogue
While preparing my Editorial and this blog post, I spoke with several people who have had similar experiences to mine, where conservative and/or anti-science propaganda has disrupted the cohesion of their extended family. The struggle to comprehend the last 25 years of change is a genuine one. I do not have a solution to this pervasive issue. But I want to make at least one thing clear for the people who read this post. My success is because of my upbringing, not despite my upbringing. From my family, I adopted an unrelenting work ethic. I learned how to keep moving forward, even when everything feels difficult. I learned to be comfortable with discomfort and imperfection. My family taught me that community matters. Readers should not mistake my contempt for the divisiveness of political and anti-science propaganda as contempt for my family or my background.
- Anoles as the Gateway to Science Advocacy - November 2, 2025
- Short Faces, Two Faces, No Faces: Lizards Heads Are Susceptible to Embryonic Thermal Stress - December 15, 2021
- The Super Sticky Super Power of Lizards: a New Outreach Activity for Grade-Schoolers - April 9, 2018
Harry Greene
Off the charts wonderful Tom, thanks!