Stand Up For Science
From vaccines to satellites to public data and what happens when the lights start going out.
I created this song for the nationwide Stand Up For Science protest this Saturday, on March 7, 2026. It forced me to think of all the blessings the scientific revolution has brought us and, conversely, the degrees to which the Epstein Administration is attacking science. This song is about both sides of that coin. I wanted it to be “list” song similar to Billy Joel’s fantastic song, We Didn’t Start The Fire.
Here’s a report detailing this regime’s attack on science.
As always, scroll down for alternative genres.
Lyrics
Smallpox gone, polio nearly
Measles faded, tetanus clearly
Vaccines rising, antibodies
mRNA in record bodies
Life expectancy doubled time
From thirty-one to seventy climb
Childhood fevers, history
Public health victory
Penicillin, sterile steel
Appendix burst but you still heal
Organ grafts and chemo drip
Radiation fighting it
Transplant hearts, insulin flow
ICU lights in afterglow
Once a sentence, now a chance
Modern medicine advanced
MRI and PET scan sight
Neurons firing in the night
Therapy, serotonin
Science brought the mind back home
Stand up for science
Stand up for truth
For every breakthrough
Built in a lab, built on truth
From the question “What if?”
To rockets in flight
Stand up for reason
Stand up for light
Power lines across the plains
Nuclear cores, electric trains
Solar fields and turbine spin
Battery cells storing wind
Factories and city glow
Industrial century flow
American grids, humming wires
Progress fueled the fires
Transistors, silicon
Microchips the world runs on
ARPANET to internet
Clouds of data overset
Artificial minds arise
Code behind our modern lives
Trillions in the GDP
Federal R&D
Jet propulsion, satellite
GPS in dead of night
Weather maps and hurricane track
Commercial flights that bring us back
Moonshot arcs and rover tread
Defense systems overhead
Coordinates that farmers use
Markets time their cues
Crop rotation, nitrogen
Hybrid seeds in rising sun
Green Revolution harvest wide
Eight billion fed worldwide
Precision tractors, soil mapped
Pest control, irrigation tapped
Midwest grain and orchard rows
Agriculture grows
Stand up for science
Stand up for truth
For every breakthrough
Built in a lab, built on truth
From the question “What if?”
To rockets in flight
Stand up for reason
Stand up for light
Clean Air Act, water clear
Ozone healing year by year
Wildfire models, storm prediction
Policy from data friction
Earthquake codes and crash test steel
Seatbelts law a life-saving deal
Fatal miles declining fast
Research built to last
Radar waves and cryptograph
WWII aftermath
Cyber walls and nuclear shield
Biodefense on every field
Universities ignite
Peer review and data right
Evidence in law and vote
Scientific note
Behavioral design and stats
Public health where people act
Sociology of streets
Psychology of markets’ beats
Combustion engines, traffic flow
Autonomous cars in tow
High-speed rails and air traffic lanes
Mobility sustains
Refrigerators humming cold
Running water, pipes of gold
Air conditioning summer nights
LED and city lights
Smartphones glowing in our hands
Streaming worlds on demand
Contact lenses, weather app
Insulated gap
Scientific method taught
Hypothesis tested thought
Data over fear and spin
Question first, then discipline
Every bridge and vaccine vial
Every aircraft crossing mile
Every chip and surgical scene
Started with “What does this mean?”
Grant lines cut, labs gone dark
NIH and NSF marked
NASA missions canceled midstream
CDC budget torn at the seam
Climate pages wiped away
Data vanished day by day
Advisory panels cleared
Peer review interfered
mRNA grants denied
Vaccine science pushed aside
WHO withdrawal signed
Global health funds undermined
Words like “science” quietly banned
Climate findings countermanded
Research frozen, scholars gone
Brain drain moving on
Endangerment erased
Education labs displaced
Foreign aid and PEPFAR cut
Journals threatened, funding shut
Grant approvals politicized
Integrity revised
Stand up for science
Stand up for fact
For every dataset
They tried to redact
For every researcher
Locked out at night
Stand up for reason
Stand up and fight
Stand up for science
For futures unseen
For questions still burning
For what might have been
From “What happens if?”
To cures we could find
Stand up for science
Stand up for humankind