Nearly 50% of Americans believe we are losing ground in scientific achievement worldwide, according to a recent Pew Research report. This comes on the heels of the Trump administration’s massive funding cuts in science, particularly in the areas of climate change, clean energy, and medicine. Historically, Americans have supported scientific innovation, but support among the public has wavered due to the encroaching politicization of science by the current administration.
To be clear, the scientific method is apolitical. Science is the systematic study of the natural and physical world based on observation, creating and testing hypotheses through data collection and analysis, and drawing inferences in order to add to an existing and generally established body of knowledge. This method is a process, however imperfect, that has given us advancements such as heat pumps, the internet, polio vaccines, genome sequencing, cancer drugs, gene editing, weight loss drugs, and AI. It provides a layer of rigor without which these important innovations would not have occurred. Moreover, every dollar invested in scientific inquiry by the National Institute of Health (NIH) realizes a $2.50 return.
The current administration has decimated an industry that was once deemed the gold standard of inquiry and innovation. From the Food and Drug Administration, the National Science Foundation, NIH, the Center for Disease Control, the EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy, and research departments at countless universities, Trump is slashing funding and firing thousands of civil servant scientists, winding back the clock on life saving and technological advancements, placing human lives and technological progress in serious jeopardy. Much of the cuts in research programs appear arbitrary, or a consequence of unrelated events such as charges of antisemitism or DEI policies on college campuses. These diminished institutions will be difficult to rebuild.
Over 80% of NIH funding goes to universities, medical schools and other research institutions in the form of research grants. These grants support faculty, students, research labs, administrative costs and overhead. Often these grants, which must be renewed every few years, are the only source of funding for cutting edge research. Trump’s cuts kneecapped thousands of research projects midstream, in some cases projects that had been in operation for years. Research into medical conditions such as epilepsy, diabetes, AIDS, cancer, autism, Alzheimer’s, obesity, and many other diseases has come to a halt or has been seriously compromised.
The dismantling of our scientific prowess is a gain for other countries, which will bypass the U.S. in the development of disease treatment, energy, and technology, ensuring those countries’ superiority in health and longevity, their economies, and their technology. Moreover, upcoming scientists will no longer prefer to come to the US, choosing instead to remain in their own countries to actively compete against us. In an open letter to the American public, nearly 2000 eminent scientists decried the Trump administration’s wholesale assault on science and warned of dire consequences as a result. They concluded “The voice of science must not be silenced. We all benefit from science, and we all stand to lose if the nation’s research enterprise is destroyed.”
Dr. Caryl Cox, PhD., Statistics and Educational Measurement. Caryl taught statistics and evaluation at Southern Illinois University. Dr. Thomas Cox, PhD., Physiology. Tom taught physiology to medical students and ran a research lab at Southern Illinois University. They live in Polson.