Conventional wisdom says scientists should stay out of politics. Unfortunately, politics can’t seem to stay out of science. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we need more scientists to run for—and win—elected office. Thankfully, more and more scientists seem to be stepping up to the plate.

The stakes are high. Elected officials aren’t just rejecting climate science. They’re investigating climate researchers whose findings they don’t like.

On evolution, the Texas school board is slated to go yet another round on whether or not biology teachers should be forced to undermine students’ understanding of evolution.

Rep. Marcia Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has peppered fetal tissue researchers with subpoenas as part of an investigation targeting Planned Parenthood, causing at least one scientist to have to halt his work for a year.

In Arizona, former state senator and now-Congressman Andrew Biggs (R) leaned on Arizona State University to deny a psychologist tenure. He didn’t like how medical marijuana advocates were citing her research on veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder who self-medicate with cannabis.

And then there’s President Donald Trump, who not only calls climate change a hoax, but who has also spread discredited fears about life-saving vaccines. Medical researchers were rightfully worried when he met with noted anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suggested the administration would amplify his views.

Clearly, we’d benefit from having more scientists in office.

We actually don’t know how many there are out there among the roughly 500,000 elected positions nationwide. But in Congress, at least, Bill Foster (D-Ill.), a physicist by training, is the only PhD researcher.

We’re “entering into a new period where getting the facts wrong is no longer disqualifying,” he told Ars, “and we need more scientists to speak up. Any scientist knows that if you say something you know to be false, it will end your career. And that used to be the case in politics.”

An erosion of trust

Scientists have made great strides in communications work in the past few years. But given our current predicament, many are looking at engaging in politics explicitly, from protest, to joining political parties, to pounding the pavement for candidates, and, ultimately, running for office themselves.

This isn’t something scientists are used to thinking about. But the Cold War, trust-the-experts consensus in Washington—and in the rest of the nation—has eroded. Big corporations and extreme ideologues have popularized alternative expertise and “alternative facts” to push their agendas. While this has been a problem for a long time, professional reporters and editors who put a credibility filter on the news are still important but have lost influence to hardliner sites like Breitbart and conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, who has more YouTube subscribers, at 2 million, than NASA.

The good news is that scientists are still widely respected and trusted by the public at large. Since the election, I’ve seen scientists rally and march, something it’s hard for me to imagine researchers doing just ten years ago. And I’ve heard the non-scientists around them yell out “Yay science!” in response to seeing researchers sporting lab coats and signs.

Now we need more scientists to follow the advice from President Obama’s farewell speech: “If you're disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself.”

Thankfully groups like 314 Action are there to help. The organization, which has heard from more than 400 scientists who are interested in running since the election, is bringing together researchers and campaigners to help scientists raise money, talk to voters, work with journalists, and win public office.

They’re not just looking at statewide or Congressional district races, either. The bulk of scientists who have approached them are interested in local and state House races.

314 Action points to state legislators like New Jersey’s Andrew Zwicker (D), a physicist who works at Princeton’s Plasma Physics Laboratory and who recently won a close election. “We need a new kind of leader who makes decisions based on evidence, not ideology,” he told voters on his website.

Running for such offices, particularly local council races and seats on boards of education is also more within reach than scientists realize, they say.

“Local seats, in particular, offer candidates an opportunity to make a serious run at winning, even if they don't have a lengthy Rolodex or deep-pocketed donors,” says Shaughnessy Naughton, a chemist who has run for Congress and who founded 314 Action. “A strong ground game and devoted volunteer base can turn the tide in these races, and we hope to show candidates who are interested in running for lower seats how they can best amplify their message.”

In addition to the scientists who want to explore a run, 314 Action has also recruited 10 state coordinators and 1,500 volunteers who will work on behalf of candidates. They’ll also be creating online resources that scientists can access to help launch and run their own campaigns.

For Rep. Foster, the decision to run came down to realizing that “science can only take us so far.” Specifically, in asking himself what fraction of his own life he wanted to spend in service to others, he realized he needed to look outside science to his family’s history.

His father was a scientist who worked on fire control computers for the US Navy during World War II. But after the war, he left his scientific career to become a civil rights lawyer. He would go on to help write enforcement language for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “Reading his papers, that inspired me to run for office,” Foster says.

More scientists should dig deep the way Foster did and consider a run.

Science does not exist outside politics. People like Benjamin Banneker and Benjamin Franklin teach us that American science and American democracy have co-evolved. Our right to vote, our right to free speech, and our right to free inquiry are all linked. And these rights are only guaranteed through the repeated act of exercising them.

We’re talking about more than citizen science; it’s time for scientific citizenship.

Aaron Huertas is a science communicator who lives and works in Washington, DC. He volunteers with 314 Action and worked as a Deputy Regional Field Director for NextgenClimate in Athens, Ohio, in 2016. His website is ScienceCommunicationMedia.com.