Who owns knowledge? President Obama? Neil deGrasse Tyson? Donald Trump? The lizard people?

No one owns knowledge. Knowledge isn’t a car, or house, or words. Knowledge isn’t the paper those words are written on, or the ink with which they’re printed. Knowledge is a huge intangible mass of thoughts and ideas that changes and grows and binds together the human race, even as it divides us. No single person can own something that we all own individually. 

“It is good to rub and polish our brains against that of others,” Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, a French philosopher and writer, said on the transfer and sharing of thoughts and ideas.

It’s imperative for us to give what we know to others and to take what they have to give to us without foolish bias or baseless prejudice. Vetting is necessary-automatic dismissal is foolishness. 

Why then is science, the pinnacle of human knowledge and understanding, so steeped in the quagmire of double talk? Why is it dragged through the mud by some politicians? Science is so often misunderstood and misrepresented by those in power such that it has to be tread upon so lightly that it becomes nearly meaningless. 

Science has changed rapidly over the years. We can now do, or nearly do, things that we never would have dreamt of outside of science fiction stories — genetic engineering, stem cell research, robots that can pass tests, super advanced prosthetics. The list goes on and on, and every advancement is a victory.

But it’s not all good news. People have known about climate change for decades. We’ve known about the causes for about a quarter century. It’s clear that it is directly influenced by human actions. Even if we didn’t start it, we’re certainly making it much worse.

But it has been routinely rebuffed by conservative Republicans, who claim that winters still happen, snowballs still exist, and therefore it cannot be getting warmer. While they do have some research to back them up, it’s shoddy and misinterpreted at best. Trump even believes China made it up. 

They seem to revel in their misunderstanding. They seek to spread their ignorance to the masses by way of limiting efforts to decrease emission requirements and lower budgets on helpful programs.

Republicans have turned a blind eye to climate change time after time and have ignored chances to perhaps alleviate it. It’s a mentality of “If I have to fix it, I have to admit I broke it.” We all broke it, we and our grandparents and their parents.

Another hot button issue bordering science and politics is the topic of health. 

As with traditional science, the health industry has grown leaps and bounds. We have long been able to graft a patient’s skin onto other parts of their body — we soon may be able to graft skin made in vitro in more complex ways. This is but one of the miraculous new things humans can do to help one other recover. 

The most controversial of these is the practice of stem cell research. Basically, stem cells are cells that can divide “essentially without limit.” When they divide, they can either stay a stem cell or become another specialized type. This means they can act as a sort of repair system for the body if used. They can help stroke victims, burn victims, heart disease sufferers and many more. They can also be used to test drugs without the necessity of actual humans and, perhaps most importantly, they can be used for cell-based therapies.

Sometimes these cells are taken from human embryonic cells. 

I’m not trying to bash Republicans, shocking as that mey seem. I don’t think they’re completely wrong or completely right, just as I don’t think Democrats are completely right or completely wrong. But in this area, at least, the majority of Republican popular opinion is in the wrong.

Republicans tend to demonize stem cells. They have come to the conclusion that stem cells are actual fetuses being dragged from the womb to be subjected to inhumane tests. I can only imagine that they picture a newborn being poked and prodded on a table.

This is obviously not the case. Embryonic stem cells are fertilized in vitro and not taken from the woman’s body. However, conservatives have attempted to stop the research on stem cells on the basis that they are harming fetuses. 

They don’t seem to grasp that these embryos were not going to be implanted into a woman to grow into a child; these embryos were going to be thrown away. It is selfish foolishness not to use them for medical advancement. 

They seem to have fostered the belief that embryonic stem cells come from aborted fetuses. This does not happen. 

Stem cell research is necessary, climate change is a fact and people who stand in the way of these are not only hindering their own advancement but they’re also hindering potential generations.