‘The Next Generation of American Scientists Is Losing Faith’

Written by Climate Discussion Nexus on April 23, 2025. Posted in Current News

The New York Times warns us that “The Next Generation of American Scientists Is Losing Faith”

It is of course Donald Trump’s fault, the president being almost as big a bogey as ‘climate change’: “Amid sweeping cuts to federal research funding by the Trump administration” world ends, women and minorities hardest hit.

But do spare a thought for the possibility that when there’s a rift between the public and elite institutions, the basket of deplorables isn’t the only problem.

After all, in his farewell address Dwight Eisenhower famously warned that “The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.”

And if Americans are losing faith in the research-industrial complex, there might be reasons other than Orange Man Bad.

No, really. We do not deny that some of the president’s efforts to reduce the size of government and pull back on some of its stranger aspirations have been ham-fisted. And don’t even get us started on his tariff policies and apparently complete ignorance of trade and economics.

The big issue with Donald Trump isn’t whether he has many of the serious faults his critics allege; it’s why nobody else was willing to take a stand against, for instance the DEI takeover of universities, leaving him in possession of much of the field by default.

Why, indeed, did academics not do more to prevent the woke rot from sweeping through their institutions? And why should we have unlimited, naïve faith in their objectivity and need for huge amounts of money given that they did not?

The Times, which seems to have changed the headline lest it prove too easy a target for scorn, tells a tale of virtuous government rising above the selfish hicks:

“American science has been a beacon for aspiring researchers since the end of World War II, when a rivalry with the Soviet Union spurred the United States to make huge investments in science and technology research and recruit the most brilliant thinkers from abroad….

This American brain trust has resulted in over 400 Nobel laureates, more than any other country in the world. As of 2023, an estimated 1.2 million people around the world held a Ph.D. in science, engineering or health earned at an American institution.

The United States accounts for 27 percent of the world’s total research and development activity – the most of any nation – though China, at 22 percent, is closing in.”

But the Land of the Free has been an intellectual as well as economic beacon since long before Big Government went into the lab. And don’t be lulled into gullibility by econometrics provided by state institutions, such as that:

“This investment has been essential to our economy. More than 408,000 jobs are supported by N.I.H. grants. It’s estimated that every dollar of N.I.H. funding produces $2.56 in economic activity.”

No doubt “it’s been estimated” by grant recipients. It’s also been estimated that every dollar in taxes quashes a good deal of economic activity too.

Do we really need to remind people how the scientific establishment in the United States, as in so many countries, unhesitatingly threw its support behind an authoritarian response to COVID that among other unpleasant defects was distinctly hostile to contrary points of view and alternative hypotheses?

Or ask whether it helps that Weather-Fox just chortled about “Why Some Scientists Think We Could Soon Have Climate Lockdowns”. And speaking of economics, do we really have to remind people including Times journalists that they who pay the piper call the tune?

The story cites an item in the Harvard Gazette that in turn hypes a “new report from the nonprofit United for Medical Research (UMR)” which turns out to be essentially a lobby group for more government money to pour into the lab-coat pockets of, gosh, us.

No, really. Their “About” page says frankly:

“UMR is a coalition of leading research institutions, patient and health advocates and private industry seeking strong and sustainable increases in funding for the National Institutes of Health in order to save and improve lives, advance innovation and fuel the economy….

United for Medical Research (UMR) supports the NIH by advocating for robust annual increases to its budget.”

So it’s not just that they have a dog in the fight. They have a hat out in it. And according to the Harvard Review summary of a piece of advocacy Harvard in fact helps fund:

“In fiscal year 2024, the report found, the agency awarded more than $36.9 billion to researchers”.

Which is a meaty bone well worth fighting over. And they say we ‘deniers’ have all the money.

It doesn’t help here that Heatmap got into the trust game with:

“Trump’s Funding Cuts Are Killing Small Farmers’ Trust in Climate Policy/ That trust was hard won – and it won’t be easily regained.”

What, the trust that the government knows what it’s doing? Or that if you do what it says it will send you someone else’s money even if the idea was stupid?

Because the latter doesn’t really appeal to us.

See more here climatediscussionnexus.com

Header image: The Globe and Mail

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