Anti-Science: The Ideological Corruption of Science and Fact-Based Evidence

The new Trump science is all about disrupting the use of fact-based data and substituting it with an agenda of misinformation and conspiracy theories. This is not a new phenomenon. It has happened many times before.

The Catholic church in 1616 condemned the findings of Copernicus who hypothesized that the Earth circled the Sun and not the other way around. Galileo was tried by the Inquisition in 1633 when he promoted this theory and declared a heretic. It wasn’t until 1992 that the Church formally acknowledged that the persecution of Galileo was a mistake and rectified its scientific view of Earth within the Solar System and the Universe.

The Nazis condemned “Jewish” science resulting in an exodus from Germany of Jews in academic and research fields including Albert Einstein, Max Born, James Franck, Hans Bethe, Leo Szilard, John von Neumann, Fritz Haber, Hans Krebs, Ernst Block and others. The United States and Great Britain became the beneficiaries of Nazi racist ideology with many of those scientists contributing to the countries where they found safety.

Under Josef Stalin, the Soviet Union politicized science and research. The genetic theories of Trofim Lysenko were promoted rejecting Mendelian genetics and Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. This science of Lysenkoism began in the late 1920s and wasn’t condemned in the Soviet Union until 1964.

In The Footsteps of The Inquisition

As described above, the corruption of scientific enquiry is not a new thing. But for the generations growing up in a post-World War Two world, science and technology have altered our understanding of our place in the Universe. The value of science has been seen as contributing to extraordinary advances in many fields.

Now, however, we are being steered down a rabbit hole of misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and distrust. Donald Trump is taking steps similar to the Inquisition, Nazis and Stalinists. These steps are visible in the appointments being made to federal government agencies with new heads that are a combination of anti-science, climate change skeptics, anti-vaxxers and more.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), and the Department of Health and Human Services are to be run by anti-science Trump appointees.

What can we expect to see in Trumpian science? The two biggest threats are:

• The appointment of those unqualified to lead federal government agencies focused on science.
• The suppression of scientific findings through the manipulation of data, taking a page from the tobacco industry’s playbook that questioned smoking’s link to lung and other cancers.

Who are the people Trump wants to enact Trumpian science?

His pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., believes vaccines developed for COVID-19 favoured Jews over black people and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. The vaccines developed, therefore, didn’t save lives.

Kennedy has stated the measles vaccine causes autism. He is against fluoridation of drinking water claiming fluoride is an industrial waste that causes arthritis, cancer, reduced IQs, neurodevelopmental disorders and thyroid dysfunction. Despite the scientific evidence that fluoride in drinking water has dramatically reduced tooth decay, a condition that can eventually lead to heart disease and death, Kennedy wants it gone. Strangely, he has no objection to it remaining in toothpaste and other dental products. Kennedy’s views come from his reading of studies whose scientific findings have been refuted repeatedly by the CDC, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Joining Kennedy is a physician and former Member of Congress, Dave Weldom who is Trump’s pick to head the CDC. Weldon is an anti-vaxxer.

Neil Jacobs is Trump’s pick to head NOAA. Best known for “Sharpiegate,” the map that showed the track of Hurricane Dorian in 2019, with a sharpie-drawn addition that showed the hurricane making landfall in Alabama which, of course, it didn’t. Although Jacobs is an atmospheric scientist, his willingness to alter scientific data in such a public way to meet the aspirations of Trump makes his appointment questionable.

Lee Zeldin is Trump’s pick to head the EPA. He is a former Member of Congress who acknowledges climate change is real but opposes policies to do anything about it. He is pro-fossil fuels. He opposes policies to encourage consumers to switch to electric vehicles (EVs). He has no proposals to address greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), considered by scientists to be the primary cause of global warming and ocean acidification.

Politicizing Scientific Research Results

Valid scientific research under Trump will increasingly be viewed through a societal lens that subordinates findings to what is deemed to be politically correct by the President and his minions.

Examples of this are manifest in the new Trump administration with the President calling climate change a hoax and his executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization.

The consequences of science being politicized are already visible with parents reluctant to vaccinate children as they read anti-vaxxer views spread through social media.

Is evidence-based policymaking suffering because scientific facts are being challenged by conspiracy theorists and spreaders of misinformation? In 2018, the U.S. government tried to address this issue by passing the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act which mandated agencies to enhance their capacity for evidence-building, bringing policymakers together with scientists and other experts. Are we likely to see even this act violated by new Trump norms? Is ignoring scientific research and data about a disease that could spread around the world, the same way COVID-19 did, a service to the public?

Populism, The Right Wing and Science

The rise of populists like Trump and right-wing parties in democracies will indeed impact fact-based decision-making. Why?

Populist and right-wing governments treat scientists as disconnected from their citizenry. They dismiss the evidence scientists bring to the table. The implications for mitigating global warming and managing outbreaks of diseases are dire.

Populist and right-wing governments have ideological goals which they pursue to distract the public from what is scientifically considered important. Hence the war in America over pronouns, gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Populist and right-wing governments slash funding to research in fields perceived to conflict with their narrative and ideology. Trump has already started this through his executive orders that are reducing biomedical research grants, targeting the budgets of the National Institute of Health and the EPA, withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and the WHO, eliminating projects focused on DEI, and reducing funding initiatives for green energy.

U.S. federal workers in scientific fields are being removed and a new culture of fear is growing causing those remaining to consider leaving their government jobs or self-censoring.

The result will meet Trump’s objectives, to further erode the public trust in what he calls the Deep State (the U.S. government) with lasting consequences for Americans and the rest of the world which has looked to the U.S. as a haven for the best scientific minds in the world and the commensurate research produced.