Science and Politics: A Historical Perspective

Science journalist Roland Pease asks whether the rounds of cuts, reorganisations and political strong-arming in US science can be weathered, and how they will likely affect us all. Eighty years ago Vannevar Bush proposed what became the pact between government and universities that led to decades of global scientific dominance. Today, US scientists fear the Trump administration is ripping up that agreement, mandating what and what can’t be studied, who can study it, and redefining expertise. The specialist agencies are either being closed down or defunded to the extent that tens of thousands of government scientists are already unemployed. Multi-year experiments are being closed down uncompleted. Top universities are besieged by mandates on who and how they hire, tied to their future funding. Data streams that benefit researchers around the globe are being switched off. Even definitions of what counts as evidence are being redrafted. Can the administration's declared aim of "restoring gold standard science", be achieved?