American science appears to be in free fall. Donald Trump is eviscerating research funding, persecuting the universities on whose contributions countless scientific fields depend, and vastly complicating immigration for foreign scholars, even going so far as to “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese students. His administration has threatened to withdraw Columbia University’s accreditation and moved to ban Harvard University from enrolling international students. If the United States was once among the best places on earth to do scientific research—home to some of the strongest universities, robust government investment, a spirit of innovation, and an openness to collaboration—scientists are now fleeing our shores in droves for China, Germany, or just about anywhere else. Many who had dreamed of spending at least part of their careers here are choosing not to come. The institutions—from universities to the relevant government agencies—are in disarray. It may take decades for them to recover.
Some of this was predictable. Trump has made no secret of his hatred of immigrants, and certain areas of research—from climate change to racial disparities in health care to vaccines—have been stigmatized as “woke” in MAGA quarters. But it’s stunning that priorities like diabetes and pediatric cancer—hardly culture-war land mines—have been equally crushed by Republicans’ cost-cutting rampage.
How did we get here? “Trump” is the correct one-word answer, but it’s also true that over the last decade and a half, liberal exhortations to “believe in science” have not helped. The implication is that if you don’t believe in it, you’re stupid. Trust the experts. Trust Harvard. It should surprise no one that this was not a winning line of argument.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton declared, “I believe in science,” when she accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Of course—ominous narrator voice—we all know the outcome of that election. Nevertheless, the slogan caught fire among liberals, and there quickly followed the 2017 and 2018 Marches for Science, inspired by Trump’s attacks on climate policy and climate research. The rallies were well attended and well intended, but, as some scientists feared, to many they came across as “another attack from a condescending elite” and “a justification for the idea that science is somehow biased.”
But the worst was yet to come.
During the pandemic, as many Americans, some conservative, some just politically adrift, grew increasingly and often dangerously suspicious of public health recommendations like vaccination, the liberal shrillness on behalf of science reached unprecedented decibels. Reviving Clinton’s smug proclamation of 2016, the even more grating “We believe in science” often appeared on a sign preceded by the scolding reproach “In this house.” To this day, you can buy pins, T-shirts, mugs, and keychains asserting the belief. And even more cringe variants exist: for example, a T-shirt that says, “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
More an attitude than an argument, this “belief in science” claim was snide. It suggested that those on the other side believed in what, witchcraft? Worse, the “belief” was nearly as impervious to empiricism as its opposition. Few of its loudest adherents would acknowledge nuance or apologize for error, even as it turned out that the disbelieving dummies had at times been correct on some pandemic matters: It was probably never necessary to wear a mask outdoors, schools probably were closed for too long, Covid vaccines may indeed pose some heart risks to young men. These polarized discussions fueled the manifestly unfortunate rise of RFK Jr. and spawned the Make America Healthy Again movement, which has attracted yoga moms and fitness bros alike. Like those who dissented from liberal nostrums during the pandemic, MAHA has been right about some things (microplastics are terrible, our children’s mental health is in peril, fluoride in our drinking water has risks as well as benefits) and horribly wrong about others (not vaccinating kids, deliberately allowing bird flu to spread).
But the worst thing about “I believe in science” is its cocky assumption that “science” can be detached from opinions, interpretations, and, especially, values and politics. That attitude has helped fuel a culture war and left the majority struggling to defend science from the current crew of right-wing wreckers in the White House, who may be wrong about most things but understand that science takes place in an ideological rather than a theological realm.
Trump’s attack on scientists and their institutions is philosophically consistent with his other positions. MAGA hates public goods and collective obligations, as well as foreigners and international cooperation. Without public goods and internationalism, “science” becomes impossible. The values that MAGA objects to—the grounds on which science is under attack—are precisely the values we must defend.
Science requires public money to succeed at scale and is undertaken primarily for the public good. Sure, private companies also do scientific research, but not at the scale that the federal government funds it, and if a private company does something important for society—as Moderna did when it developed Covid vaccines—it’s federal government subsidies that make it possible. This system assumes rightly that science benefits all of us. Anyone could need a cure for cancer someday, desire to live in a thriving natural environment, or feel curious about what’s going on in outer space. That sense of the public interest is anathema to this White House, which sees little value in the public sector. Trump’s worldview is like Margaret Thatcher’s—the U.K. prime minister famously said, “There is no such thing as society”—but his individualism is more extreme because there is no subject more interesting to him, no interest group more pressing, than himself. What good is science to Trump personally?
The right also hates science because it requires cooperation across borders. To most effectively advance knowledge and research, individuals from different countries must put their heads together, co-author studies, accept each other’s postdoctoral students, visit, immigrate, speak. This sort of exchange makes no sense to MAGA. The assumption of the Trump White House is that people from other countries have nothing to offer us and are, in fact, dangerous to our national security.
There’s a third, more complicated ideological pillar to Trump’s attack on science, and this is anti-elitism. Some science—though hardly the majority—takes place at Ivy League institutions like Harvard. This White House hates such places, not, as it claims, because of “antisemitism”—MAGA doesn’t mind antisemitism and bigotry in other contexts—but because the anti-elitism of attacking the Ivy League always plays well. Selective admissions breed resentment, since most people can’t get in. Worse, the Ivies are overwhelmingly dominated by the rich, as extensive studies by The New York Times, Thomas Piketty, and others have found. While the research done by Ivy League scholars is a critical public good, it is also a scandal that institutions more exclusive than most country clubs are allowed to enjoy tax-exempt status and government funding. Those of us to the left of Trump need to welcome a more honest conversation about these institutions. Should they even enjoy nonprofit status? To keep their public funding and tax exemptions, should they have to do more public service? Serve more low-income students, turn their real estate holdings into affordable housing, institute open admissions? Or should they simply be nationalized and run as public institutions?
But as usual, the Ivy League is a distraction. Most universities aren’t highly selective, many are already public, and most bring substantial economic benefits to their communities. Scientific research is essential to the prosperity of many American cities and towns, where the university is the main employer. College-centered towns are some of the fastest-growing in the United States, and in many places higher education has replaced manufacturing as the industry that brings jobs, money, and vitality. You might say that before this year, science was making America great again.
Trump’s necrotic attack on all human inquiry imperils all that. What is needed in defense of science is not patronizing assertions of belief but, instead, clear arguments about why we need it. It’s odd that the economic rationale is getting short shrift when so many communities depend on STEM and universities. We must also acknowledge that some of the reasons the right hates science are exactly the reasons to defend it. People who don’t believe in public goods will not believe in science, but everyone else should. Science saves lives by advancing medicine; millions of Americans know someone whose life or health has been saved by an advance in medical research funded by the federal government. The internationalism of science should also be defended: Bringing the best minds together from around the world is not only crucial for science, it functions as citizen diplomacy, fostering the international understanding and cooperation that is much needed in a world of strife.
Harvard University has a P.R. campaign, in defense of itself, making some of these arguments, especially for medical science, but I’m not sure it helps to hear these claims from institutions with so much elitist baggage. Better to hear from Penn State, or the United Auto Workers (full disclosure: my union), which represents not only autoworkers but thousands of scientists, and has been rallying in defense of scientists and science as a good benefiting—and belonging to—the working class.
When we fight for science, it’s worth going back to the foundations of the value system we are defending. Next month will be the eightieth anniversary of “Science: The Endless Frontier,” a report made to Franklin Delano Roosevelt by his director for scientific research and development, Vannevar Bush, outlining the critical role that the government should have in the scientific project, and why. In asking for the 1945 report, FDR wrote: “New frontiers of the mind are before us, and if they are pioneered with the same vision, boldness and drive with which we have waged this war we can create a fuller and more fruitful employment and a fuller and more fruitful life.” That’s the kind of energy we need right now.
