r/skeptic • u/Lighting • 3d ago
More Than 1,900 Scientists Warn That U.S. Science Is ‘Being Annihilated’ Under Trump
https://www.ecowatch.com/scientists-letter-warning-trump.html61
u/polygenic_score 3d ago
Bedrock economic engine being dismantled before our eyes. Even worse to contaminate science with ideology. Better to just burn the cash in a bonfire than let it support the propagation of lies.
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u/Vysce 3d ago
Well yeah. They put RFK Jr. in charge of health and even the crypt keeper is in better shape.
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u/Cgwchip4 3d ago
That man sounds like he needs another cigarette. He’s got a dead worm in his brain y’all
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u/DubRunKnobs29 3d ago
Fuck I’m starting to think I have a worm in my brain in the form of people reminding me RFK had a worm in his brain
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u/Matt3d 3d ago
They want to replace institutions with their weird faith based beliefs. There will be a generation of kids that will not pursue science and every other country on the planet will outpace us.
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u/GustavoFromAsdf 3d ago
How do you pursue science in a country that can't agree if religion belongs or not to the classroom? Where TV stars and reality shows are trusted more than professionals? Where teachers have to pay to educate and buy supplies off their own pocket?
The US will have a brain drain for generations to come, and politicians want peasants too dumb and conformist to revolt
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u/midorikuma42 3d ago
No, not every other country. I'm sure the US will still outpace Afghanistan in science.
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u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 3d ago
The last time the government of a world power was this openly hostile to expertise and competence, over 30 million people starved to death
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u/Opasero 3d ago
This might be part of the plan under p25? Or Yarvin. Or whichever plot is in the lead now.
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u/Wismuth_Salix 3d ago
Yarvin says the poor need to be killed and made into biofuel.
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u/MonsterkillWow 2d ago
Any poor person can google Yarvin's house and see where he lives. Pretty bold words.
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u/CruisinThruLife2 3d ago
Scientific advances were allowing the U.S. to be the leader in new advances. That’s where the money is. Too bad it’s all being torn down for trump‘s egol
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u/Queen_Of_InnisLear 3d ago
It's a lot easier to control an uneducated public.
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u/DubRunKnobs29 3d ago
Not really. If you control education then you can get people to pay you for their own indoctrination. Thats a much better deal.
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u/thebomby 3d ago
Come to Europe. The food is better, too. P.S. This is going to ruin all the big American tech companies.
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u/Rattus-NorvegicUwUs 3d ago
IT ABSOLUTELY FUCKING IS HOLY SHIT HOW ARE NONE OF YOU LOSING YOUR MINDS ABOUT THIS?!
Crippling an entire generation of scientists. Disrupting labs who have the perfect balance of staff skills. Halting medical research mid-grant. Cutting funding by 75%, gutting all the senior doctors and scientists at our highest medical institutions, gutting NIH staff and so so so much more..
You do not just flip the table and expect people to be able to bounce back. This is an ecosystem where people spend over a decade being poor as shit just to push humanity forwards, only to have the government try to push them out. These skills are valuable but have limited job openings. It’s not like for every government scientist fired you get someone working for a private company. Many of these people will just be underutilized and end up having to drop out of science just to survive. Getting people back into a PhD program or academia or a specific department after a substantial break can be impossible. It’s a death sentence for an entire generation of scientists and there is literally zero explanation given for why
The entire academia budget cuts, that will kill academic research as we know it, is less than teslas military contracts, so fuck right off with any excuses about waste. It’s an investment in America. In its health and scientific lead. For every 1$ you put into the NIH you get $2.50 back and global prestige, it’s a win win.
These people are out to kill an entire sector of the U.S. economy. You have not the slightest fucking idea what an apocalypse this is for the future of American science and technology. We are giving up this century to the Chinese to own the libs.
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u/Realanise1 3d ago
Not sure if H5N1 is happy about this, or if the virus is sick and tired of being pushed to take all the steps needed to evolve to spread h2h when it doesn't "want" to.
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u/createa-username 3d ago
Well let's just throw it on the pile of shit that needs to be fixed by adults after the disgraces lose power. I don't envy the next president who has to deal with whatever the fuck is going to happen the next 4 years. It's already bad enough and it's only been a few months.
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u/Darkdragoon324 3d ago
It's not going to end in 4 years. We're not going to have un-rigged elections, if we have elections at all. And even if by some miracle a sane person actually wins, Trump (or Vance, let's be honest Trump isn't looking so well these days) will refuse to step down like the fucker already tried to do last time,except now he's replaced the entire government with goons that won't drag him out.
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u/6gv5 3d ago
Science makes people harder to herd in masses with bullshit, as it promotes critical thinking, doubt and demand for verification, which are all incompatible with what dictatorships are based upon: the blind acceptance of what the leaders say.
Trump and his cohorts won't annihilate science, they're not that stupid, they will just restrict it to a small minority of chosen ones they'll pick from time to time, working tightly in controlled environment with the ruling class to keep up with technology and development, then making extremely difficult the access for ordinary people to make them easier to control and pretty much impossible for them to leave because by then they wouldn't have any enough skills and education to make a living in the rest of the world.
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u/quaybles 3d ago
All the red meat is about the economy right now. Well, that and the War, the Middle East escalation and Teslas.
It's going to require more economic punishment from mother nature before this admin pivots at all. It's unfortunate because this problem should be testing our collective knowledge and the solutions would bring economic boom. Modern infrastructure, fresh air and cheap, limitless, clean energy.
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u/ga-co 3d ago
Assuming the planet remains habitable, China is going to race past the USA and make it look like a 3rd world country more than it already does. They'll have limitless clean energy and we'll still be playing in the dirt trying to extract carbon fuels. What's wild is that if crypto in its current form is going to catch on, we'll need limitless power. China will have it. We won't.
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u/goonfucker21 3d ago
Republicans hate science except when it gives them handheld supercomputers where they can spout hate online. Or the deep water engineering to extract oil for their dumb fucking trucks. Or the surgeons that perform triple bypasses on their coagulated hearts.
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u/Special_FX_B 3d ago
Imagine thinking this idiocy will do anything but hurt the country and the people for a very long time.
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u/smvanbru 3d ago
When science says my ideology is wrong, it's clearly the science that's wrong, because I could never be wrong, right?
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u/Old-Ad-3070 3d ago
Once America imported Scientists for American benefit, now we can’t read and think science is evil and we are chasing them away YET idiots in red caps and our neighbors without red caps voted for the fat felon. Americans have to sufferfor its sin and stupidity.
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u/Many_Trifle7780 3d ago
Annihilated - extinguished - snuffed out as climate change erradicates all life
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u/Dwip_Po_Po 3d ago
If you love science back download and archive everything you can get your hands on. Don’t just say fuck it and call it quits, actually save as much as you can come the fuck on people.
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u/JasonRBoone 3d ago
Unfortunately, the average American voter won't give a shit until something truly horrific happens....a zombie virus outbreak or something...before they'll beg scientists to save us.
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u/FL4KMSTR 2d ago
Project 2025. Make sure the education system fails so we can have our billionaire friends privatize it and give Americans another bill to pay. Also they get to control what is taught. The same goes for Airline security. And more.
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u/dmwessel 2d ago
This should come as no surprise, we all knew that Trump was going to go after science. He wants to bring the IQ level of everyone down to his. Wharton knows the truth and DJT put a gag order on them.
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u/dbnoisemaker 2d ago
When the consequential shit hits the fan, the shitheads who voted this fucker in will be hunted.
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u/Winter-eyed 2d ago
We aren’t surprised old “just inject bleach into your body” is dumber than a bag of hammers. We’re just disgusted that so much of the voters are too.
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u/Jensen1994 2d ago
The beginning of the Chinese century before our very eyes. Arguably already ahead in many fields, they must be running their hands with glee at the spectacular fall of the US.
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u/Xyrus2000 2d ago
Maybe Trump is trying to make us a third-world country because 3 is bigger than 1. :P
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u/brokencreedman 2d ago
We are going to have to preserve all the knowledge we have currently so it's not lost in these next 4 years until we can get rid of these jagoffs. Then we can resume real life and real science. Sadly, it looks like we will have to pause progress for now as we fall behind China and the rest of the world. Keep fighting, but also preserve.
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u/MonsterkillWow 2d ago
The truth always wins out. They can believe whatever garbage they want. It won't get them a better iphone lmao.
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u/stormthecastle195 2d ago
After Covid, scientists have lost all credibility whatsoever. Full stop.
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u/Rattus-NorvegicUwUs 2d ago
“Waaaaah the earth isn’t flat, the church has lost all credibility whatsoever”
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u/Rocky_Vigoda 3d ago
US 'science' was annihilated in the 90s when the US government made it illegal to default on student loans. That turned US academia into a for profit industry that allowed everyone to take out high interest student loans. The US has roughly $1.75 in student loan debt because they spent the last 30 years selling young people junk degrees and turning science political and ideological.
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u/Archy99 3d ago
You are confusing undergraduate education with research, they are two different things.
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u/Rocky_Vigoda 3d ago
No i'm talking about the entire industry. Academia is a very elitist system where historically the only people who could go were either rich or smart. In the 90s they made it more accessible by letting poor people take out student loans but they made it impossible to default on that debt. You're stuck with it until you pay it off or die. In the past, people would just declare bankruptcy.
By opening the door to a lot more new students, schools expanded and they started teaching a lot of stuff that doesn't really help anyone get a job.
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u/BrightBlueBauble 3d ago
People have been receiving degrees in subjects that don’t automatically lead to a job for as long as there have been universities. I would argue that the original intent behind universities was to turn out more academics, not workers. Anyway, obtaining knowledge is important without it immediately contributing to the capitalist system. We need artists, poets, historians, and philosophers as much or more than we need football players, accountants, medical assistants, and paralegals.
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u/Rocky_Vigoda 3d ago
I would argue that the original intent behind universities was to turn out more academics, not workers.
You'd think that but no. Universities in the past taught stuff like Eugenic theory because rich people loved that science proved that they were genetically better than lower class people.
It wasn't until the end of WW2 and the rise of the strong middle class where average boomers had the ability to go to university. It was something that was still out of scope for a lot of people though.
Movies like Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds are all about elitism on campus with frats.
Anyway, obtaining knowledge is important without it immediately contributing to the capitalist system.
That was always my attitude. I didn't have the grades or funds to go to school right away but I did know how to steal stuff. People pay thousands of dollars for information they can learn for free. I spent a year hanging out on campus sneaking into classes, hanging out in the library, helping girls study and 'stealing' education. Once you learn something, it's hard to unlearn and it's not something they can take away from you. With the internet, you can learn pretty much anything. You just don't get the fancy diploma.
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u/Kitchen-Fondant-51 3d ago
It's been happening for decades. We used to have commercials where doctors would suggest what cigarettes to buy. Businesses telling us certain processed sugars are better for our health than red meat. There are dozens of examples of experts lying to us about science over the years. But your media outlet is telling you Trump started it, so...
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u/Rattus-NorvegicUwUs 2d ago
Brother, if I asked you what a null hypothesis was you would need to open ChatGPT.
Don’t act like you’re some science expert who can sleuth out the good from bad science.
You’re an ignorant mouthpiece regurgitating some “edgy” ideas someone else came up with while using 60 year old examples about (privately funded research on) cigarettes to excuse gutting our entire public research sector in the year 2025.
You haven’t the faintest idea about how science works or operates but your understanding of nuance ends at the bottom of a Facebook comment section so please crawl back under your trailer and let actual functioning adults do the talking.
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u/Kitchen-Fondant-51 2d ago
When I see actual functioning adults talk, I'll sit back down. Don't be a fascist and try to shut me up.
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u/Rattus-NorvegicUwUs 2d ago
You’re not being “shut down” — you’re being called out for speaking confidently about things you clearly don’t understand.
It’s not fascism to say you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s just reality. You brought up cigarette ads from the 1960s like it’s some grand indictment of science, then tried to leap from that to “therefore public research in 2025 is a lie.” That’s not skepticism — that’s boomer brain rot.
If you want to be taken seriously, start by learning the basics. Until then, I’ll keep calling bullshit — and no, that’s not oppression. That’s accountability.
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u/Kitchen-Fondant-51 2d ago
You told me to crawl back under my trailer. Essentially telling me to shut up. I won't, and you can move on about your day. I know propaganda when I see it.
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u/Rattus-NorvegicUwUs 2d ago
Cool, you’re free to talk — and I’m free to point out when you’re spewing nonsense. That’s how free speech actually works.
You claimed public science is propaganda based on nothing but vibes and a cigarette ad you saw in a history book. That’s not insight — that’s just parroting tired anti-intellectual garbage.
You don’t get to demand respect for your opinion while proudly rejecting the basic framework of how science works.
So no, I won’t “move on.” If you want to play grown-up and debate ideas, come with something better than trailer park martyrdom and Facebook deep thoughts.
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u/Kitchen-Fondant-51 2d ago
You don't get to disrespect people because of a difference in opinion. You can prove me wrong without being a prick. Try it. People will take you more seriously. I'm nearly 50 years old and have seen "science" used to manipulate people over and over again. I don't "parrot" or regurgitate info. I say what I've seen. Today, I see Trump trying to stop government corruption while the people who benefitted financially do their best to stop him using media manipulation. I wouldn't be surprised if you're a paid troll whose job is to try to shut down people like me. Good luck with that.
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u/Rattus-NorvegicUwUs 2d ago
You’re not being disrespected for having a “different opinion.” You’re being called out for proudly rejecting science in favor of vibes and conspiracy theories.
Saying “I’ve seen science misused” doesn’t mean you understand it — it means you’re skeptical of everything except the one narrative that flatters your bias.
By your logic, if someone abuses language, we should abolish dictionaries. If someone lies in court, we should scrap the justice system. That’s not critical thinking — it’s just reactive cynicism.
And no, I’m not a “paid troll.” You’re just not used to people pushing back with actual facts instead of nodding politely while you turn personal grievance into political gospel.
If you want respect, bring something real to the table. Otherwise, don’t confuse being challenged with being silenced.
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u/Kitchen-Fondant-51 2d ago
Yep, to write all this within a minute of my response proves you're a troll. You've said no facts. I'm gonna say what I believe to be true, and others can believe it, research it, or not believe it and move on. You're not calling me out because you haven't proved me wrong. Stop wasting your time with me and move on.
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u/Rattus-NorvegicUwUs 1d ago
Takes me less than 30 seconds to counter your ignorance — sorry if that feels like trolling.
You’re not being silenced, you’re just being corrected. You made broad claims with zero evidence, I responded with logic. You called it propaganda. That’s not debate, it’s deflection.
You’re free to say what you “believe” — and I’m free to show why it falls apart under even basic scrutiny. That’s not wasting time. That’s keeping the record straight.
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u/SurroundParticular30 15h ago
Science is what told us smoking and sugars are bad. Sure there’s always a few corrupt experts but the vast majority go by the data 📈
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u/hurricaneharrykane 3d ago
If the market is there to find out scientific answers, can't this be done with individual investment?
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u/Hairy_Negotiation_67 3d ago
Most experiments cant be recreated and epstein was a main scientific funder.
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u/im_buhwheat 3d ago
It was also being annihilated under Biden with woke. My theory is humanity peaked around 2010 and then social media took hold and our puny brains couldn't handle the information overload.
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u/WorldlyBuy1591 3d ago
Is mickey mouse in this list too?
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u/LincolnshireSausage 3d ago
Can you not tell the difference between a literal cartoon character and a scientist who has dedicated their life to study and research?
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u/WorldlyBuy1591 2d ago
Im referring to a certain climate change scientist list.
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u/LincolnshireSausage 2d ago
Maybe it would behoove you to explain what you are talking about instead of being cryptic. I have no clue what list you are referring to or how I could infer you were referring to it from Mickey Mouse.
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u/Fun-Dragonfruit2999 3d ago
There is billions going out to bullshit non-replicating social studies research.
All studies had a 60% margin for administrative, which was a huge fraud. Trump reduced it to 15%.
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u/CompetitiveSport1 3d ago
I have 3-4 friends in postdoc & professor jobs in hard science. Apparently they're now avoiding the terms "clean energy" and "renewable energy" and have to use stuff like "energy security" instead to avoid getting flagged. One joking said he's going to use "white" instead of "clean" since "white power" definitely won't get flagged lol. My math professor friend said that research using the word "integration" in a mathematical sense is getting flagged just because that's one of the scary words that trigger conservatives.
In short, I don't believe that "billions going out to bullshit non-replicating social studies research." Especially if the only source is the guy who lied about "sending condoms to Hamas", since his concern for truth is non-existent
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u/Fun-Dragonfruit2999 3d ago
Clean Energy and Renewable Energy are salesmanship terms and don't belong in a scientific paper. Those words are for sales pitches not investigations into truth.
Look at the stupid shit the 'clean energy' crowd has sold
usour politicians. Hydrogen powered cars for one. California—under Governor Schwarzenegger—poured $800M into hydrogen powered cars, we have a dozen or so, and one fuel station. Hydrogen is a shit fuel, electrolysis of water to make hydrogen only returns—I think it was—24% of the energy. That's a negative 75% ROEI (return on energy invested). Give me four dollars, and I'll give you one back. The best way to use hydrogen is to attach it to a carbon, its much more stable in that form. As a matter of fact, we can pump it out of the ground for a net energy gain. There are groups working on trapped reservoirs of hydrogen, that may produce something, but handling hydrogen is way nasty stuff, it leaks often and dangerously, it embrittles steel, is very dangerous when concentrated.The main point, is scientists become activists. They use their position to promote personal goals, political goals. They have lost the plot. DOGE revealed universities were charging 60% overhead on grants. Then what, using that money to promote private political ends.
Yes, we should be doing basic research. As a geologist, I read a lot of papers in GSA and SEG, and the abstracts of American Mineralogist (don't have full access). These things help me in exploration, and provide great insight into deep geological work with metamorphosis, tectonics, etc. So I do find there is great value in this. But there's great misconduct. Look at The Replication Crisis, where mostly in the medical field, bedrock studies were falsified (Alzheimer's) causing years of setback, and hundreds of millions in research dollars mis-directed down the drain. The peer review process has been revealed as crap.
It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
--Marcia Angell MD7
u/CompetitiveSport1 3d ago
DOGE also "revealed" the condoms to Hamas and $8 billion contract that turned out to be one-tenth of that but since we live in a world where it's now openly embraced that our government lies to us and half the country is okay with that, I have zero faith in this "charging 60% overhead on grants". Is there verifiable confirmation of this? Or is it like the "$8 million for making mice transgender" claim where the truth turns out to be not that?Hiring teenagers who call themselves "Big Balls" does not help credibility in my mind either lol
Look at The Replication Crisis, where mostly in the medical field, bedrock studies were falsified (Alzheimer's) causing years of setback
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Non-Sequitur
This is logically irrelevant. You can't take the premise "this study was falsified" and jump to "therefore this other study is also likely falsified/unreplicable". This might also be a faulty generalization fallacy
The peer review process has been revealed as crap.
I'll just point out that replication issues are only discovered because of peer review. How else would we know that founding studies were bad? Slashing funding for research in general is going to make this worse, not better. But anyway that's all off-topic and I'm not interested in discussing it further. I know people who work on this research personally and am absolutely going to trust their judgment in the value of researching this stuff over anything 19 yo. Big Balls, 78 yo. politician Trump, or any other non-expert
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u/ME24601 3d ago
All studies had a 60% margin for administrative
[Citation Needed]
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u/Fun-Dragonfruit2999 3d ago
Yet the average indirect cost rate reported by NIH has averaged between 27% and 28% over time.[2] And many organizations are much higher—charging indirect rates of over 50% and in some cases over 60%.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-068.html
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u/ME24601 3d ago
So definitely not the "All studies had a 60% margin for administrative, which was a huge fraud" that you claimed.
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u/Fun-Dragonfruit2999 3d ago
Yeah, ALL is poorly stated. However parse out the NIH explanation, and look at that phrase 'over time.' Why would one state 'over time' unless they were trying to hide the fact that 60% is likely the current minimum ... but back in the 1970s it was 25%.
This PBS article sheds more light. The Gates Foundation caps overhead at 10%:
And these rates can vary substantially. A Nature investigation in 2014 found that universities negotiated reimbursement rates in the range of 20 percent of the total grant amount on the low end and and 85 percent on the high end. Most rates fell between 50 and 60 percent.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/university-funding-trump-debate
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u/ME24601 3d ago
Yeah, ALL is poorly stated
It wasn't "poorly stated" it was just objectably incorrect. As was the "huge fraud" claim.
Why would one state 'over time' unless they were trying to hide the fact that 60% is likely the current minimum
They state "over time" because it is an average, not because they are hiding something.
This PBS article sheds more light
You should read the entirety of that article to see why that funding is important.
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u/Nambsul 3d ago
Republicans don’t like science… too long a word for starters