In Simple Terms
Physicist and Republican candidate Tom Stalkup says politicians should change their decisions when better evidence comes along, not use science only when it supports their side. His work and campaign show how evidence can improve public debate—but also why facts, values, and proposed solutions need to be examined separately.
In American politics, science often becomes a team flag: one side points to it when it backs an argument, then questions it when it gets in the way. Tom Stalkup, a physicist who ran for office as a Republican, puts that problem at the heart of his view of good government. Scientific evidence, he argues, should not be a decorative flourish in a speech. It should help people test policies and correct them, even when the results are uncomfortable for the party promoting them.
A Physicist Enters Politics
Stalkup earned a PhD in condensed-matter physics from Florida State University in 2000, after working at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee. His research focused on organic crystalline superconductors—materials that can carry electricity without resistance under the right conditions. He studied a copper bromide compound that showed a striking transition near 80 kelvins, an extremely low temperature.
As Stalkup described it, the research was about more than measuring the temperature at which the material became superconducting. He found that the rate at which it was cooled affected the transition temperature, the electron’s effective mass, and other properties. The experiment offers a reminder that scientific results need to be understood in light of the conditions under which the data were collected; a single number should not be pulled out of context. Stalkup sees the same principle at work in politics: it is not enough for a decision-maker to cite a fact. They should explain what the evidence supports—and where its limits lie.
After completing his doctorate, Stalkup did not pursue an academic career. He says years of study and research had left him exhausted, so he took a job at an electronics company developing a remote weather station. He founded his own company in 2004. Its stations supply data to researchers studying the climate. Cameras were later added to track sea-ice movement in Antarctica and monitor birds on remote Jarvis Island in the Pacific Ocean. Stalkup stresses that his company provides measurement tools; it does not decide what conclusions researchers should reach.
Science Is Not a Pick-and-Choose Exercise
Stalkup says both major parties—the Republicans and the Democrats—can be selective about science: they highlight studies that support their positions and ignore those that challenge them. He sees this as putting political interests ahead of knowledge, rather than making policies open to revision as information changes. That does not mean every political disagreement can be settled in a laboratory. Values, priorities, and decisions about how to distribute resources still matter. The point is that factual claims should not be shielded from scrutiny simply because they help one side.
That is the thinking behind his call to put science ahead of party loyalty. Science does not always offer a ready-made answer to every public question, but it provides ways to distinguish a claim supported by evidence from one the available data do not support. Scientific understanding can also change: new measurements may emerge, or earlier results may be reanalyzed, making it necessary to revise an explanation or a policy. By this logic, changing one’s mind is not necessarily a sign of weakness. It may be a reasonable response to stronger evidence.
Stalkup warns that cherry-picking facts does not always require inventing them. A speaker can make a case sound convincing by assembling some accurate figures while leaving out information that would change the overall picture. This kind of selective presentation can be hard to spot when people get their news from sources that show only facts matching their existing views. In Stalkup’s view, a polarized media landscape can create two separate bubbles, each with an unbalanced account of what the other side believes or what the evidence actually supports.
Climate Change Puts the Evidence Principle to the Test
Climate change offers a clear example of the tension between party identity and data. Stalkup is a Republican who accepts that the climate is warming and that human activity contributes to it. He says weather-station measurements supplied by his company are used in climate research. That puts him at odds with some Republican leaders who have called climate change a hoax. At the same time, he does not assume that every project or expenditure presented as a response to the crisis must be successful.
Public money, he points out, can go to companies that fail. He cites the controversy over support for Solyndra during Barack Obama’s administration. That example does not, by itself, disprove the evidence for climate change. It raises a different question: how well public programs are designed and how effectively the organizations receiving funds are held accountable. Keeping those questions separate matters. It is possible to accept a scientific finding while objecting to a particular way of spending money to address the problem.
This distinction is important because public debate often confuses whether a problem is real with whether a proposed solution works. Accepting that the climate is changing does not automatically identify the best policy, nor does it guarantee that every financial incentive will achieve its goal. Conversely, the failure of one project is not enough to invalidate climate measurements. Good decisions require examining the evidence for the phenomenon, then assessing practical options one by one and making their success criteria, risks, and costs clear.
From Memories of Misinformation to the Media’s Responsibilities
Stalkup links his distrust of political rhetoric to what he sees as declining media quality and the spread of misinformation. He recalls the case made for the invasion of Iraq under President George W. Bush, saying that 7 out of 10 Americans at the time believed Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks. He uses the episode to warn that repeating a claim in public does not make it true, and that people can adopt a political narrative when the information they receive is incomplete or biased.
Stalkup also compares journalism to a courtroom, invoking a legal rule against presenting facts in a misleading way. That comparison raises important questions of its own. Courts operate under defined rules and procedures, while newsrooms cover fast-moving events and work with sources that may contradict one another. Still, his central point is clear: journalists should avoid leaving out information that would fundamentally change the meaning of a story, distinguish confirmed facts from interpretations and possibilities, and correct errors when they discover them.
Readers have responsibilities, too. A critical approach to the news does not mean rejecting everything produced by media organizations. It means paying attention to where a claim came from, the context in which it appeared, and whether conflicting information has been included. Methodical skepticism is different from blanket disbelief. The first asks for better evidence and remains open to correction; the second can reject any conclusion that does not suit the person’s existing views, even when supporting evidence continues to build.
Research Funding: Fix the Flaws Without Breaking the System
Stalkup’s discussion of science and politics extends to funding for basic research. He has opposed efforts to give political officials a direct role in deciding the fate of research grants and called for changes at federal institutions—including the National Science Foundation and the Department of Health and Human Services—to be halted. He acknowledges that political influence or favoritism may affect some funding decisions. But he argues that any remedy should target the problem, not dismantle broad systems or harm researchers and projects that have nothing to do with it.
His argument reflects the nature of basic research, which may not produce a product or financial return quickly. In his superconductivity research, raising the transition temperature by 2 or 3 kelvins, as he describes it, was not likely to generate immediate profits. But a deeper understanding of material properties could eventually open the way to wider advances in electronics. The political lesson he draws is that judging research only by its immediate financial payoff may deprive society of knowledge whose applications take time to emerge.
That does not mean every grant deserves funding or that evaluation systems are free of error. The challenge, as Stalkup frames it, is to improve review without turning it into a tool for rewarding political loyalty. If research funding decisions become tied to officials’ desire to favor particular positions, the independence of research and the public’s trust in it can suffer. But ignoring conflicts of interest or weak evaluation can also erode trust. Reform therefore requires clear rules, review processes that can be audited, and targeted responses to specific shortcomings.
The Candidate and the Party Calculus
Stalkup is running as the Republican candidate in Massachusetts’s 4th District against Democratic representative Jake Auchincloss, who won his seat in 2020. Republicans face a steep challenge in the district: it has not been represented by a Republican since 1947. That difficult electoral position may give Stalkup more room to depart from some traditional party positions, but it does not remove him from party politics or make his statements a substitute for examining the policies he proposes.
Stalkup says Democrats do not have a monopoly on respect for science. They, too, may reject evidence when it conflicts with their positions or use scientific language to claim moral superiority over their opponents. He argues that calling half the country ignorant widens the divide rather than persuading people. But criticizing both parties does not automatically prove that both are equally wrong on every issue. Each claim needs to be assessed independently: who made it, what evidence supports it, and whether it fits with what experts know.
This distinction keeps the call to move beyond partisanship from becoming an empty slogan. A politician’s claim to stand with science is not enough to judge their record. What matters is whether they apply the same standard to issues that matter to their supporters and their opponents, and whether they are willing to change their views when new information appears. The same test applies to institutions: do they acknowledge the limits of what they know, explain the reasons for their decisions, and allow their results to be assessed independently?
The Bottom Line
Tom Stalkup’s experience combines a physicist’s training with a political effort to reduce the influence of party loyalty on how people treat evidence. His examples, from climate change to research funding, show that simply declaring respect for science will not resolve public disagreements. But it does set an essential standard: present relevant information, separate evidence from political judgment, and revisit decisions when the facts change. Criticizing both parties is no substitute for checking each claim on its own. In the end, a candidate’s commitment to science is measured not by what they say about it, but by whether they apply its principles when the evidence challenges their own interests.