It is true that when people are appointed to positions and talk without any appreciation or understanding of scientists, well, that gets scientists worried. And when public officials talk about alternative facts, people who have devoted their careers to trying to uncover facts are dismayed.

We know Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin as politicians, but they felt that science was something everyone should have a knowledge of.

One must not politicize science. But the converse is not necessarily true. There's no reason why scientists can not go into the public sphere. In fact, I would argue they should.

Every citizen, scientists included, has some obligation to be involved in public affairs and politics.

Congress, even with its frustrations, is the greatest instrument for justice and human welfare in the world.

There is a sense that science and politics are incompatible. I don't think so at all. I think it's important that scientists take great pains to make sure that ideology and personal bias and wishful thinking do not contaminate the collection and analysis and evidence.

The concern now is whether policymakers even understand the meaning of evidence. Whether there is any truth to this descriptor of "fact-free era." Whether policy is going to be made more and more in the absence of scientific input.