Note well that Trump has tripled-down on this. Compared to Trump, Bush was more launching a skirmish against science, not a full on war. Trump has escalated that to a war on science, and as well, a war on objective fact. A war on basic truth, as discovering truth is always the goal of science.
And in many ways, a war on America’s future. The America we know today is the product of our huge technology boom after World War II. Yes, we were the guys who’s factories had been modernized as part of the war effort and not blown to bits. But it was free college, with a stipend, for 10 million veterans — my Dad, my Uncle, my Father-in-Law. It was the single greatest influx of the American Middle Class to higher education in US history. It gave us dominance in the Space Race, it gave us the Transistor, the Integrated Circuit, the Computer, and eventually the Internet. It gave us the best hospitals in the world, it built the best Universities, and left the USA as the sole Superpower. That was dominance in Science and Engineering, and that has never been threatened more than today.
In both the Bush and Trump cases, the accusation of Anti-Science is aimed squarely at the Republican leadership in Washington, DC. It’s not directly levelled at every Republican, of course. And yet, the Republican relationship to science is just getting worse, year by year. If there are those Republicans dedicated to scientific inquiry and the reality of objective truth, they have been claiming membership in a political club that is racing us back to the bronze age.
Some of the various anti-science rhetoric and actions include: \
- Trump’s claims that anthropogenic climate change is “A Chinese Hoax”.
- Trump’s supporting the very, very thoroughly debunked medical fraud that vaccines cause autism.
- Trump withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord.
- Budget proposal to cut The National Institute of Mental Health budget by 30%.
- NASA Earth-science missions scrapped — Trump doesn’t want us to even study climate change.
- The Trump administration banned the words “climate change” and “evidence-based” from Federally run websites.
- The CDC was forbidden from using words in their annual budge report: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,” and “science-based”. Changing the language… a cliched, Orwellian suppression of fact.
- Trump’s EPA has banned EPA-funded scientists from serving on advisory boards — but not industry representatives.
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine was ordered to stop work on a useful and overdue study of the health risks of mountaintop-removal coal mining.
- Budget proposal to cut funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the E.P.A. by eighteen per cent or more.
- Trump has yet to appoint a National Science Advisor. In absence of that post being filled, Michael Kratsios, a former political advisor to Peter Thiel, is running the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
- Existing climate data and other information has been removed from many agency websites, including EPA and the Department of Energy.
- The EPA and other science-related agencies have 20% or greater staff cuts under Trump.
- The Trump administration has made it more difficult for government scientists to speak publicly about their work, as well as about misconduct within an agency. It has restricted communication with Congress, placed vague gag orders on agency staff, and failed to affirm the ability of scientists to share their expertise publicly.
- Trump and Congress have allowed politics to supersede science by signing an unprecedented 13 congressional resolutions rolling back science-based protections, including safe drinking water standards and safeguards to prevent worker exposure to harmful chemicals.
- Not a single Trump appointee to a science-related agency has any scientific credentials. For example, the head of the Department of Energy is Rick Perry. He’s got a bachelor’s degree in Animal Science… maybe as close as Trump got in any of these agencies. Obama’s men had PhDs in Physics. And most of Trumps appointees charged with regulation are industry representatives, not scientists.
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Craig,
Let’s be honest, few “Republicans’ are opposed to “Science” ! What they are opposed to is spending vast sums of public money on what you define as “science”.
Very few parliamentary democracies with either elected or appointed Cabinet ministers expect to fill Cabinet appointments with experts.
The reasons for this are obvious. An expert may well be too close to those being supervised, lack administrative experience, lack political knowledge, etc.
Most of the items on your long list are of a political, not scientific nature. The Republican administration was elected with the promise to severely cut the size and cost of the Federal bureaucracy. This isn’t “anti-science”, but it’s anti- something close to the heart of every leftist Democrat, increasing the number of people living off the taxpayer !
Craig, President Obama has gone ! With his departure his policies also disappeared. For good or ill, a new era has dawned. Endlessly whining about the past and trying to pretend nirvana was lost is pointless.
Obamian utopia was always just an illusion, an era of profligate waste and symbolism delaying reality.
Get over it ! Turn your focus to the here and now ! The world of new, clean technology still needs champions, especially among Republican (and Trump) supporters. These are the people environmentalists must persuade and enlist to support new technology if environmental progress is to occur.
Do you really imagine endless bleating about the greatness of Obama’s vision,coupled with whining and vehement abuse will win support among either Republicans or the general public ?
Why not do something positive, lead by example ! Study the potential benefits (try reading information from all sides) of emerging Clean(er) Coal technology, buy a Tesla, read about the astonishing advances in agricultural and piscatorial sciences.
The work of these guys is science also, maybe not to your political/ideological liking, but definitely science.
There is a very real possibility the current administration may serve two terms, ven more likely is many of the policy initiatives created by this government will remain under any administration, so we must all learn to adapt and achieve the achievable, not stand impotently bleating on about increasingly irrelevant issues.
Craig, I don’t mean that unkindly. I realize you sincerely believe the issues on your hit list are matters you regard as important and it hurts you greatly to see Obama’s “legacy” disappearing.
The new administration is what it is, a mixture of shrewd pragmatism, contradictory enthusiasms, and populism. But whatever it is, the administration holds the power to promote or deflate initiatives, policies and programs.
To make a change,( any effective change), the current administration needs to be involved. This administration has proved it can’t be bullied or ranted into supporting environmental programs. But the administration has shown a willingness to support practical environmental programs and science, especially if those programs contain political or economic benefits.
The other method is simply to go around the administration. It doesn’t stop you buying a Tesla, buying (and promoting) EV horticultural machinery etc. If I were an American, I’d try to interest Trump into promoting EV golf and lawn equipment (imagine the White House lawn filmed being cut with an EV mower ridden by the President! 🙂 ).
So much can be accomplished, instead of wasting time on bitter internecine political warfare.