Our new administration has declared a war on science. It was quiet at first, but now that Trump is flexing his presidential guns, a lot of people, not only the scientists, are noticing.
In a class I’m taking called “Literary and Scientific Writing,” we talked about Trump when we talked about Galileo, who was forced to publicly reject all of his ideas about the Earth revolving around the sun under threat of torture and death by the Spanish Inquisition. Trump comes up in other places, too, when we talk about research ethics, censorship, or mankind’s responsibility to preserve the planet. Even as students who are separated from science by several degrees, who read fiction and theory about other people, who once did science in the past or may do science in the future, we have all noticed the parallels to Trump and his war on science.
It’s no secret that Trump and science are not friends. He’s tweeted plenty of things about global warming being a Chinese hoax and about how the EPA needs to stop all its goody-goody tomfoolery and let the drills work. Part of his wartime strategy, now that he’s in office, is leaving the science-related positions in his cabinet unfilled. There is currently no science advisor to the White House, and some fear there never will be again. The other part of his strategy is budget cuts: Trump’s latest budget cuts 28% from the Department of State, not to mention the horrific cuts to the EPA. What does the State Department do, you ask? I wasn’t sure either until my mother, a successful microbiologist who has worked for many years in many countries to prevent the use of biological weapons, got cut from a fellowship with the State Department that would have made her a consultant to America’s foreign policy regarding bioterrorism.
Basically, the State Department is in charge of diplomacy. They are in charge of every American diplomat in more than 270 different locations worldwide. They are in charge of participating in global affairs and conversations. Some goals stated on the State Department’s official dot-gov site include: “promoting peace and stability” and “shaping a freer, more secure, and more prosperous world.” The Jefferson Science Fellows, my mother’s late program, collects eminent scientists from around the country to make sure that any policy decision regarding science is made with the input of somebody who has spent a career getting to know the field. In addition to my mother’s program, which would have made sure that science has a say in US foreign policy, the Department of State handles a lot of inarguably beneficial programs. They run programs to promote female literacy and aid refugees all over the world. These programs, too, have been cut.
As a microbiologist working with infectious diseases, my mother primarily researches diseases that can be weaponized such as anthrax and tuberculosis. A world without weaponized anthrax sounds pretty stable and secure to me. So why cut these programs?
The answer, of course, is money. Preventing bioterrorism costs money, but doesn’t make much of it. In fact, most scientific endeavors — save pharmaceuticals — don’t create much revenue for big businesses, especially compared to the billions of dollars to be made in oil or weapons sales. And Trump, at his core, is a businessman.
So what can my mother do now? With the Jefferson Science Fellows, nothing. That program has been disbanded and discarded; it is simply gone forever. Imagine competing for months for the perfect job that combines all of your skills, experiences and interests, one that helps people — really helps people — then suddenly it all stops existing. Now my mother and the Jefferson Science Fellows simply have to wait until somebody new takes charge and advocates for the program’s return. In the meantime, people will die of anthrax and tuberculosis, strange flus and plagues, weaponized by governments and terrorists alike in countries that do not have the research and policies to prevent it. Of course, there are other ways to prevent global bioterrorism, but as science-related programs and policies in America get cut further and further down, it seems unlikely that we will be able to make any progress in the next four years at all.
Written by Eloise Gayer
Sources:
Editorial Board, The. “The Trump Administration’s War on Science.” NYTimes.com, 27 Mar 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/opinion/the-trump-administrations-war-on-science.html. Accessed 06 Apr 2017.
Thrush, Glenn, and Coral Davenport. “Donald Trump Budget Slashes Funds for E.P.A. and State Department.” NYTimes.com, 15 Mar 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/us/politics/budget-epa-state-department-cuts.html. Accessed 06 Apr 2017.
“Diplomacy: The U.S. Department of State@Work.” U.S. Department of State, https://careers.state.gov/learn/what-we-do. Accessed 06 Apr 2017.