Christian Nationalists have tried to discredit science ever since Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. Most Americans know about the Scopes litigation–probably thanks to the movie, Inherit the Wind–but fewer know that Scopes (and science) lost at that Tennessee trial.
It’s comforting, albeit misleading, to think that respect for science, the scientific method and empirical evidence eventually won out.
It’s misleading because the forces antagonistic to scientific research and verifiable knowledge haven’t yielded to logic or evidence. Those forces are alive and well in the Trump administration, and they are rapidly eradicating America’s longstanding global dominance in the creation of human knowledge.
The New York Tmes recently took a “deep dive” into the Trump administration’s war on scientific inquiry. Noting the resignation of the head of the National Science Foundation–a man Trump appointed during his first term–after Trump cut more than 400 research awards from the NSF budget, the report noted the administration has also slashed budgets for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and NASA, and has defunded thousands of researchers.
The explanations offered for this wholesale attack are typical Trump hogwash. “Cost-cutting,” “government efficiency,” and my favorite: “defending women from gender ideology extremism.” It appears that numerous grants were eliminated simply because their descriptions referenced aspects of reality rejected by MAGA morons– climate, diversity, disability, trans or women.
Economists tell us that every dollar spent on research has returned at least $5 to the economy.
Nevertheless, Trump’s administration has defunded studies on AIDS, pediatric cancer and solar physics. It has laid off meteorologists at the National Weather Service; pandemic-preparedness experts at the C.D.C.; and black-lung researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The Times reports that a next-generation space observatory, already built with $3.5 billion over a decade, awaits a launch that now may never happen.
Predictably, American scientists are evaluating their options. France and Canada are among several other countries courting American researchers. A recent poll found that more than 1,200 American scientists are considering working abroad.
What is even more frightening is the administration’s effort to count as “science” only “findings” that accord with the administration’s beliefs–and the National Science Foundation will no longer fund “research with the goal of combating ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation.’ Why? The administration says that efforts to correct lies and disseminate accurate data “could be used to infringe on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens.” And a Justice Department official accused prominent medical journals of political bias for not airing “competing viewpoints.”
I am not making this up.
Since its first days, the new Trump administration has clearly shown where it thinks scientific attention should not be focused: It has attempted to censor federal scientific data, cut billions in government spending on research, and compromised care for some of the world’s most at-risk populations. Now, as the nation’s leaders have begun to encourage inquiry into specific areas, they are signaling that they’re willing not just to slash and burn research that challenges their political ideology but to replace it with shoddy studies designed to support their goals, under the guise of scientific legitimacy.
The article reports on several administration directives clearly intended to confirm Trump’s desired results.
This is consistent with everything Trump and his allies have revealed about their views on science since January: that it is not a means to better understand objective reality, but a political weapon that they must guard against, or deploy themselves. In recent months, Kennedy has accused the expert committee that counsels the CDC on its nationwide vaccine recommendations of being in the pocket of vaccine manufacturers; the administration has also fired from HHS several scientists who were prominent leaders in the COVID-19 response, including a few closely affiliated with Anthony Fauci, whom Trump has ridiculed as a “disaster” and an idiot and Desai derided as one of many “demonstrably fallible ‘experts.’” Last week, administration officials also redirected two federal websites, once used to share information on COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines, to a page promoting the idea that the coronavirus pandemic began as a lab leak, rather than Fauci’s “preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated in nature.”
MAGA’s revolt against science is an important part of the GOP’s continuing rejection of the “reality-based” community.
A psychiatrist friend defines denial of reality as insanity. (See yesterday’s post…)
It’s more than a revolt against science. These damned fools are denying the very basics of human development since the time our most ancient ancestors were performing trial and error experiments on arrowheads and spear points.
What the science denial crowd is really exhibiting is not so much their politics, but rather their intellectual dwarfism. Add to that a particular kind of mental sloth that actually requires thinking instead of just following the cultisms.
Deliciously, what will be these idiots’ undoing is their lack of intelligence and religiously-based ignorance. We’ve seen this before … many times throughout recorded history. What a drag it must have been for those who thought the sun was actually a god, only to learn that it was the giver of all life and energy on earth.
Trump has denied reality for a very long time because when your ego believes you are the center of the universe, your perception revolves around you. How you see the world IS reality. His maturity has been stunted in his teenage years. I mentioned yesterday that I am not sure what his addiction is, but I’d say food and sex. He probably doesn’t realize how McDonald’s uses our pleasure centers to create their crappy food. He thinks it tastes great!!
Everybody who hung around Epstein and Maxwell was addicted to sexual perversion. Trump even bought the rights for beauty pageants so he could creep around backstage and have beautiful young ladies hang around him.
I know the anti-science Christian Nationalist crowd is partially behind Trump’s actions, but Musk is far from anti-science. All of Silicon Valley is pro-science. Scientific theory is their God. When you read about their “end-of-time belief system,” their solutions read like a sci-fi novel with mergers of man and machine. Sam Altman has paid a company to upload his brain into the cloud so he can be “immortal.”
I don’t think the point is to eliminate science. They don’t want the federal government involved in research, in my opinion. Their goal may be to privatize these programs like they’ve done with Musk’s SpaceX and Neuralink.
Don’t forget that the programs that were used to upstart Silicon Valley were all government programs. Palantir’s programs were created to spy on the American people, but Congress scrapped them (they wouldn’t fund them) because they violated the Constitution. However, where the government has a conscience and has to play by the ‘rules,’ private industry does not. Obama was terrible at using private industry and off-balance sheet CIA programs to do his dirty work. So did Biden. Biden censored speech on social media via Facebook and Twitter.
They may be appealing to Christian Nationalist voters, but I think the result will be privatizing these programs and having the government pay for them via public-private partnerships (PPP). It’s easy money.
The word we have for the Ruling Triumvirate’s beliefs is populism. They campaign with bait that reflects what they believe the common man believes, whereas liberals campaign based on our collective knowledge.
The Ruling Triumvirate is in it for the money and proof that they are superior beings, which in their minds are equivalent.
We hoped that Trump I would teach the average person the error of populism, but we were wrong. Will Trump II?
IDK.
sow doubt,reap the division. the people trump courted were already there. he just found/exploited another group devoid of reason and ignorant to anything past stroking thier i phone for a funny. id say the primary education offer by many states dismal.its a policy of the states to teach their own narrow views. the pay for a primary teacher is lower than whale dodo..and the policy of past still reigns supreme in teaching today. here in Nodak i get around some highschoolers when working with and repairing equipment. lotta nice kids,all white for the most part. but they lack,leadership beyond the church/school idea. smiling faces who hate/dislike other skins for no apprent reason except what they/peers and the school/church has set as a standard for them to be in our neighborhood. ive seen where kids here who have a Native American name even with light skin and barely recognized as,have had to leave for another school district (and its granted as long as they/parents will transport them) because of harrasment in thier local school.the schools here tollerates this. religious leaders here fail in any regard to stop this. this state still lives in a past of secular rule. 4 walls renforced by local and POX like news media has denied many of any other look outside to the real world. today the kids are strokin thier phone,and shoving it under my nose thinkin im a trumper,haha look at the stupid liberals.. yea kid, great, why dont ya get outta here and find a real life,find what the real world is about. im that fuckin Bernie liberal..
Todd;
ever look at russian clubs and for,the rich,sexual wonderlands,for money..its talking,anything..
Anti-Science = Pro-Stupidity
I worry most about the research that won’t happen because it’s not profitable. The NIH has run an orphan drug program for more than 40 years. Prosthetic research is another area where the government not only has to do the work, but also fund the production. By far the biggest users of prosthetic devices are the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs (two separate entities, despite what we see on television).
Everyone on this blog knows how I feel about Medical and Prosthetic research. It’s vital to everybody, maybe not today, but soon enough. If I may quote former Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop “Insufficient medical research may be hazardous to your health!.” Many people will die, due to the stupidity of the current administration. I pray for Karma. Make that Instant Karma!
On another note, we already have a PPP with Big Pharma. NIH, DoD, and DVA do the research, patent it and contract with a pharmaceutical company to produce and market the new drug or device. That frees them up to find new ways to protect their patents and keep generics off the market, giving us the opportunity to pay up to $1000 a month for insulin.
Your elected GOP senators and representatives won’t oppose Trump and his cronies for your sake. We must convince them to do it for their own sake. Redouble whatever you are doing to help the resistance. Keep the pressure on them!
The academic medical center (Vanderbilt) I work at will lose 250 million dollars. The scientists have been told that if they can’t meet their salary needs they will not be ab le to stay and will have to leave. Most of these scientists are PhDs because the MDs will be able to pick up more clinical time to see patients. They are leaving for other countries. These are folks working on cancers, autoimmune, psychiatric, neuroscience disorders. We were one of the major contributors to the Covid vaccine.
I think how so many scientists who left Germany and the benefits ‘we’ received from their contributions for the race to space.
Trump has an anti-science agenda, it’s called “Pander to the idiots who kiss up to me,” those whose sense of reality he can control. It’s all about manipulation, his one honed skill.
We were told, the other day, by ht woman who is the head of the county-wide Friends of the Library, that 20% of Pasco Florida’s population is functionally illiterate. Facts, empirically based facts, not “alternate” facts…they don’t need no such thing.
Trump is very susceptible to flattery and manipulation. (Worst. Negotiator. Ever.) The last person in the room often sways him. Really, all Trump cares about is personal wealth and fame.
I think what’s happened is that the gang associated with Project 2025 understand Trump and keeps their people in his ear, and they have convinced him that delivering on the project’s goals will lead to longterm, historic fame.
Similarly, Stephen Miller’s constant attention is what propels the racism aspects of the project to the forefront, so the attacks on DEI and the deportations are centred. It helps Miller that Trump is racist, and is predisposed towards these atrocities.
It all comes back to Project 2025. My point is that this is not exactly a Trump problem. The aspects discussed in Sheila’s post today would be at least as bad with JD Vance as president, for example, or any other project disciple.
The main Trump-specific problem is tariffs and the associated global trade war. There are aspects of this particular idiocy that the Project 2025 people _do_ like, but they wouldn’t have approached it as stupidly as Trump has.
Trump, and his ilk, hate science because it’s goal is to describe (and understand) reality. They don’t want their illusions shattered.
I recently saw a documentary about James “The Amazing” Randi, who uncovered hoaxes in faith healing and “ESP”. The reaction from the deceived people was anger at Randi. Such it is for Trump and the MAGA crew when their fantasies are debunked by real science.
To amplify Peggy’s comment, when I was at NIMH, every year, our Lab Chief began by telling us that our job was to do the research that was too uncertain for the pharmaceutical industry and that if we did our jobs, the knowledge we discovered would be put to use to cure people by that industry. We did the unprofitable research on the people’s dime.
One more note
Please, Todd, don’t confuse “science” and “technology”.
I was just reading a policy piece in Science about Silicon Valley’s obstruction of science in the name of technological progress. They do everything that they can to rush their products to market, but also do everything they can to prevent any real research into the possible harm that their products may cause. After all, everything is Silicon Valley is proprietary; scientific methods are published
Our state and national governmental leaders have been pushing students into science classes and careers for 40 years, and now GOP leaders at state and federal levels refuse to believe settled, proven science. Respected scientists are being fired, and their governmental and perhaps even private employment in the U.S. depends on political sycophancy. Our national defense and public health and safety are increasingly in danger, and hopefully the lure of employment is greater from our allies than from our enemies. Unfortunately our President is doing his best to turn allies into enemies. But he also seems hell bent on destroying our own and the world’s economy, the Constitution, and much of the Republican Party. I wish the next presidential election was sooner than later.