I love science, and I love scientists. The hunger to know, to ask “why?” and “how” are ingrained in the human spirit, but not everyone is sufficiently curious and dedicated to seek answers that have not already been found, answers that Siri and Google can’t easily answer.
I spent a chunk of last summer glued to the livestream of the NOAA Okeanos Explorer expedition to the Marianas Trench National Marine Monument. Every day for about 6 weeks (every night for me, which made if difficult) they would drop a submersible with a linked ROV into water from 1000 to 5000 meters deep, and poke around to see what they could find. I learned so much watching these livestreams! I learned about Relicanthus and deep-sea sponges, and brisingids and brittle stars, squat lobsters and their symbiotic relationships with tiny anemones. I learned of the amazing carnivorous sponges that look a lot like corals, and which catch and eat minute crustaceans. I learned about manganese accretion, and was amazed to see cantaloupe-sized manganese cobbles that, at an accretion rate of 1mm/1 million years must be 100 million years old! I learned about Siphonophores and Holothurians, and saw fantastic colorful forests of crynoids and sponges and corals, and tiny colorful shrimps with half-meter-long antennae. I felt bereft when the expedition ended, having come to “know” the scientists (Geology lead Patty Fryer and biology lead Shirley Pomponey, and a couple dozen assorted experts scattered around the globe), and enjoyed so much sharing in their excitement and wonder at what they were seeing. I have been waiting impatiently for the upcoming Okeanos expeditions, so I can learn more.
Now I worry — will they even sail again? What will become of the Okeanos Explorer in this new, science-phobic administration? Where will these scientists go for their funding? What of the knowledge that we might have gained — new food or energy sources, perhaps ways to combat diseases, pollution, climate change? Will NOAA be crippled by funding cuts, and the Okeanos Explorer rust away in a dock? Will it be sold to some other country?
The new administration, I am sure, and the GOP congress have no interest in science for its own sake, no interest in exploration except for new sources of oil. Money spent on the Okeanos Explorer is money not being spent on armaments or The Wall — so I am sure the funding will be cut to the bone.
It’s a small thing, I suppose, in the greater scheme of things. I am sure to lose my health insurance when the ACA is gutted, and my hope is to remain healthy until I am old enough for Medicare in nearly 20 years — if Medicare still exists at that point. I worry about a dear friend who, though a US citizen (born in a Naval hospital, son of a US Marine), is black-haired and swarthy, reflecting his Mexican ancestry. Will he be detained, abused, deprived of his rights? I wake each day with a weight of dread heavy on my heart, dread for my country, my people.
In a sense, though, my concern for the Okeanos Explorer is not a small thing — it’s one element of worry in the assault on science and reason, the assault on art and beauty, on what’s good and hopeful about humanity… the assault on the Enlightenment. The Okeanos Explorer delved into some deep, dark and cold places… but nothing as deep and dark and cold as the hearts of the people running this country now.