The Lancet Planetary Health, May 2025

Editorial: The right to protest?

There is a tendency to think that the role of applied science is to provide information to decision makers in government and the private sector, who are in the best place to then decide what to do in the light of this new understanding of the world. While this is broadly correct, it is of course an oversimplification. Decision makers are not neutral, they invariably have existing goals, values, constraints, and priorities. Consequently, scientific information is filtered, at least in part, by how it intersects with the existing ideas and priorities of those in positions of authority. For this reason, evidence that calls for fundamental, rather than simple procedural changes, is not readily addressed through conventional science policy processes. In these more challenging cases public pressure can be needed to drive progress.

It is easy to think of examples of social developments, which are now overwhelmingly seen as correct; women’s suffrage, racial equality, gay rights, the end of the war between Viet Nam and the US, where those in authority at the time were slow or reluctant to embrace change and often held a dim view of advocates for these issues. In each case social movements, and protest in particular, had a significant part to play in raising awareness and ultimately moving the mainstream political discourse on these issues. Clearly then peaceful protest has an important role to play in societies, creating a relatively direct line of communication so that elites see and hear when their actions are strongly discordant with sections of the public.