Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom Hosts Webinar for Congressional Staffers and State Representatives

HILLSDALE, Mich. — Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom hosted a live webinar on Tuesday, July 12, to discuss the connection between science and the principles of republican government. The webinar was attended by a group of congressional staffers and state representatives.

Academy for Science and Freedom fellows Scott Atlas of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University Medical School led the webinar. They spoke on past national health crises and their political responses.

“Restoring truth in America’s institutions is one of our fundamental purposes,” said Atlas during the webinar. “The more independent, exploratory investigatory work that is done, the better the American public is, and it needs to be non-political.”

Atlas and Bhattacharya proposed alternative governmental responses to future crises, encouraging legislators to consider the appropriate relationship between science, technology, and the politicization of their development and implementation.

“We should not be finger-pointing but identifying errors to do better,” said Bhattacharya. “We should ask what processes lead to these decisions. Everyone, regardless of politics, should be interested in this. De-politicizing health measures is crucial.”

The Academy for Science and Freedom was founded by Hillsdale College to combat the recent and widespread abuses of individual and academic freedom made in the name of science. The Academy, which operates out of Hillsdale’s campus in Washington, D.C., educates the American people about the free exchange of scientific ideas and the proper relationship between freedom and science in the pursuit of truth.