When Neil H. Shubin assumed the presidency of the National Academy of Sciences, he called for the NAS to speak with greater speed and reach at a time when science is increasingly contested in public life.
That call is timely. But even the clearest scientific advice can be ignored when too few people trained in science and medicine take part in making laws and setting national priorities.
Scientific advice is essential. Scientific participation is equally important.
The National Academy of Sciences emerged from a longer American tradition of scientific engagement in public life. Benjamin Franklin helped establish the American Philosophical Society in 1743, Massachusetts established the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1780, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science was founded in 1848.
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At the time, the contrast between the scientific institutions of the United States and Europe was considerable. Britain’s Royal Society and France’s Académie des Sciences had already existed for nearly two centuries and had established enduring traditions of organized scientific inquiry, publication, recognition, and, particularly in France, advice to government. These institutions provided important examples of how scientific expertise could be brought together and given a national voice.
The NAS therefore did not arise without precedent. European academies and earlier American learned societies provided important institutional examples. The federal government’s growing need for organized and dependable scientific advice created the immediate setting for the establishment of the NAS.
In 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the legislation creating the NAS, the American scientific enterprise was still in its infancy, small and only loosely organized. Scientific work was carried out through a limited number of universities, learned societies, museums, federal surveys, and government offices. The nation did not yet possess the extensive network of research universities, federal laboratories, funding agencies, and large-scale scientific infrastructure that would emerge later.
The Civil War served as a catalyst, creating urgent practical demands involving navigation, weapons, transportation, mapping, medicine, and other technical problems, while making access to organized scientific expertise increasingly important to the federal government.
When Congress chartered the NAS, it established its role in providing scientific advice to the government. From the beginning, that role was to provide scientific counsel rather than to exercise political authority.
Since then, science in the United States has grown into a vast enterprise touching health, agriculture, national security, artificial intelligence, the environment, and the economy.
Yet scientists, engineers, physicians, and other research-trained professionals remain relatively uncommon among elected officials. In the 119th Congress, 21 members of the House hold engineering degrees, representing about 4.8 percent of its 435 voting seats. The Office of the Clerk also identifies 28 House members, or about 6.4 percent, as medical professionals. In the full Congress, 20 members are physicians, about 3.7 percent of the 535 voting seats. These figures do not indicate how many members have substantial scientific research experience.
Evidence does not turn itself into policy. It needs people who can explain it, defend it, and act on it.
The NAS cannot determine who chooses to enter public life, but it can help make such participation more visible, respected, and professionally viable.
Part of the difficulty lies within our own institutions. Universities and public agencies rightly prohibit the use of official positions and public resources for partisan activity. However, the surrounding culture can make even personal civic or political participation appear professionally risky.
Higher education, the nation’s scientific academies, and learned societies should draw a clearer distinction between institutional partisanship and preparation for public service. They can encourage training in science policy, legislation, communication, and civic leadership while affirming that service in government does not mean leaving science behind.
The NAS brought organized scientific advice to government, building on a civic tradition established by older learned societies. These institutions can encourage more scientifically trained people to consider public service as a legitimate extension of their professional lives.
Scientific advice remains essential. But scientific advice also needs scientific participation.
Rao M. Uppu is professor of environmental toxicology and chemistry at Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he has served since 2002. He is also an adjunct professor of chemistry and pathobiological sciences at Louisiana State University.
Trained in biochemistry, physical organic chemistry, and free radical chemistry, his research spans bioanalytical methods, biomarker discovery and validation, chemical toxicology, environmental chemistry, computational genomics, reactive intermediates, and the molecular mechanisms of disease. His scholarship is indexed on ORCID, ResearchGate, and Google Scholar.
Dr. Uppu is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the Royal Society of Biology (RSB), the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), and the Academy of Toxicological Sciences (ATS).
In addition to his scientific research, he writes reflective essays on scientific culture, mentorship, peer review, ethics, and the human dimensions of academic life. He shares updates on LinkedIn.
