The worst year in U.S. science since this blog began

Today I will depart from my usual avoidance of political matters, because of the extraordinary shift in the relationship between the U.S. government and its nation's scientific community this year.  I alluded to certain aspects of it in an earlier post, and I won't give a thorough discussion of the topic here.  Others more eloquent than me have done so elsewhere.  However DTLR cannot end the year without at least acknowledging the shift, for it has affected nearly every corner of the scientific community in the United States.

This blog began in July, 2013; now we are 12.5 years later in a completely different world.  In that time, incredible scientific tragedies were witnessed, such as the global COVID-19 pandemic, and two outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (the second, currently ongoing) in North America.  However, thus far, 2025, has been the worst year of all for science, since this blog began.  For we have witnessed the conscious, deliberate choice by the nation's leaders to cripple itself in many ways, including by crippling its scientific community.   Many scientists (including me) have been left in a prolonged state of under- or un-employment as a result.  Others have fled the United States, and many, many talented scientists have chosen not to even come to this country to learn or to work. At the same time, the People's Republic of China has been expanding its investment in science and in scientists, and could not have wished for a better boost for its scientific community than what the United States has voluntarily done to itself.  Investments in science, engineering, technology, and medicine are massive stimuli for a nation's economy, public health, and national security.  In this enterprise, the United States has used 2025 to build up China (including its ruling Communist Party) and weaken itself.  

In the big picture, this is not simply the fault of one particular homegrown party or group of politicians.  Collective blame should be shared with their domestic predecessors/opponents, whose multidimensional failures paved the way for the current regime's election.  Much of the damage will thus be irreversible.  Future leaders of any party will politicize and weaponize elements of "science" at their convenience, and use scientific funding to reward and punish.  The nonpartisan civil service, including its scientists,will never fully recover, and even if someday allowed to pursue its work without interference, will never be trusted by the taxpaying public again.

DTLR does not approve.  

 

 

What ails science

DTLR rarely tackles political matters related to current events.  Unfortunately recent years have seen the erosion of public support and trust for science and especially scientists, and this blog cannot completely ignore these trends.

Earlier this month in Science, Megan Ranney (Dean of the School of Public Health at Yale) reviewed a new book by Michael Mann and Peter Hotez, Science Under Siege.  I have not read this book and am not closely familiar with the work of either author, though I did meet Prof. Mann once at a book signing of his.  Since I haven't read the book I won't comment on it.  Instead I'd like to highlight some passages from Dean Ranney's review that I completely agree with.  Among her criticisms of the book, we find this:

It could also have done more to highlight the ways in which science has been undermined from within, such as the rise of poor-quality open-access journals or the publish-or-perish ethos that drives some scientists to unethical behavior.  If we are to restore trust, we must confront the problems within our ranks alongside the far more powerful external threats.   

Not only is the above passage sound in my opinion, the situation is even worse.  Many conventional practices in the sciences that are considered ethical and "normal" are actually traditions of methodological sloppiness.  Examples include HARKing, the winner's curse, the file drawer problem, and the "garden of forking paths" (Gelman and Loken). This has been well documented in Science, Nature, and this blog over its lifetime; for an introduction, see Richard Harris' book, Rigor Mortis.  Scientists need to fix their own house and earn each others' trust before we can expect the general public to support and trust what we are doing.

Moreover, Dean Ranney goes on to say "the book misses the fact that many people are rightfully fed up with the state of the world and that many lump scientists (and science) in with all the other structures that they feel have failed them."  She continues:

People's distrust of science is certainly being fed by bad actors and a vitriolic online culture. But it is also seeded by individuals' and communities' own experience with broken systems.  Think of the opioid epidemic, which resulted from a confluence of not just many of the same factors that Mann and Hotez identify but also the well-meaning recommendations of scientists and doctors; or the need for organizations such as ACT UP...to force access to trials and medications in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.  Populism has always been a strain in American society, and it gets stronger when people feel abandoned.  We will not make progress on antiscience sentiment until we collectively fix the underlying structural issues, for the sake of all.  Nor will we make progress without creating space for everyone to be part of the solution.

In my view, these comments by Dean Ranney deserve to be circulated more widely than in its current form as part of a book review.  Sadly I suspect the wisdom reflected in these words could be ignored by the vast majority of the scientific community, due to lack of awareness. Hence I highlight them here.