The Science of Freedom: a Conversation with Anna Krylov
Academic Freedom Alliance | Olivia Glunz
An important conversation with University of Southern California professor of Chemistry, Anna Krylov, who wrote the Peril of Politicizing Science and Academic Ideologues Are Corrupting STEM. Having grown up in Russia, Krylov understands what it’s like to live without freedoms, and realized quickly emerging threats in the U.S.— “I started to notice alarming trends in the scientific community and in society in general…I see censorship and other forms of suppression creeping into our institutions, professional societies, and even publishing.”
What does Krylov foresee? What those who have lived without freedoms or studied history understand clearly—“Today, they rewrite our technical language, tomorrow they remove the names from equations, and the day after that they will stop teaching the actual physics contained in these equations. If you think this is unlikely, recall that in Soviet Russia entire scientific disciplines were forbidden for ideological reasons. So I think it’s a very dangerous trend, and we need to resist it.”
Krylov cites Havard alum Dorian Abbot’s (AB 04, MA 04, PhD 08) “disinvitation” as another example— “Just think about the implications of this case—you invite a scientist to discuss his research about life on other planets and the climate, but you cancel his appearance not because of some flaws or controversy in his research but because of his opinions on topics that are not related to his work….This is highly dangerous for science… and unfortunately this is happening now.”
What do do about it? Krylov urges us to speak up, citing Solzhenitzyn’s mantra to live not by lies. She urges, “If you witness a lie—call it out; do not stay silent…while no one wants to be a martyr for free speech, we should learn from history that we cannot just hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.”
She reminds us that “after WWII, Martin Niemöller famously said, ‘First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.’ We cannot just wait; we need to speak out as individuals, even if that entails danger.”
As FAIR HA+ has urged the Harvard presidential search committee, Kyrov also believes education is needed— “Educating people about basic civics, especially people in my community, is very important. While someone who has studied law might understand very well what free speech and academic freedom do and don’t mean, chemists typically don’t know these things—for a long time, we didn’t need to. But now we do.”
This excellent interview is a must-read for anyone in the academic community committed to truth.
Related: An Existential Threat to Doing Good Science (The Free Press, 11/7/22)
