Today, instead of doing research, I decided to do something to help other people research. As groups of scientifically-minded people begin to organize a March for Science headed to Washington D.C., I thought it would be a nice gesture to create shirts. As a humanities scholar, I am not a scientist, but I *do* believe that science, scientific inquiry, and evidence-based scholarship (across all disciplines) is vital to the production and dissemination of knowledge, and knowledge is what makes our world better.
So I made shirts that will help us–scholars, academics, students, people who like science and the humanities–to support one another across disciplinary boundaries, as I hope we can do across boundaries of nationality, religion, gender, and race.
Science for the Humanities! Shirts
Humanities for Science! Shirts
The shirts are part of a charity site that donates all the proceeds to one of two foundations: the Society for Science & the Public or the National Humanities Alliance Foundation. Neither is government-run, because I don’t trust the government (who cut funding for the NEA, NEH, and NSF) to use such money for the good of either the sciences or the humanities.
Shirts are not much, but they are a way for us to begin conversations without having to speak right away. They show others that these are things that are important to us–whether those shirts demonstrate feminism or racial equality or a love of country… or all three.
This is a small gesture and won’t do a lot, but it is something that I hope can help to inspire people to support both the sciences and the humanities (including, by the way, the social sciences and the fine arts!) as they call their representatives, consider where to donate their money, and choose how to talk to others about what is important in the increasingly stressful days to come.
Climate change matters. History matters. Art and dance and music and psychology and anthropology and sociology and gender studies and race studies and natural science and physical science and religious studies and classics and literature and theatre… all of them matter.
Facts matter. Evidence matters. Research matters. Knowledge matters.