How science education can stave off demagogues

When we teach science, technology, engineering and mathematics to young students we are investing in the long-term well-being of our economy, national security and health. But more than that, science education is a bulwark against the sort of rank populism that sets people against one another.

NOW that we have turned the page to new political leadership in the United States, it will be tempting to treat what happened in the past four years as a bad dream.

We can’t allow that to happen. Our four-year exposure to an increasingly viral demagoguery demonstrates that those who seek power by inflaming prejudices and rejecting fact and reason pose an existential danger to our democracy.