WHY IS DONALD TRUMP SO ANTI-SCIENCE?

The science and research fields are alarmed by President Donald Trump's anti-science policies.  The White House would argue that it is pushing for gold-standard science. What is that?

• 
  The administration released their MAHA Report, injecting politics into science.
• And in a “Gold Standard Science” executive order last week, President Donald Trump outlined a new level of oversight over what counts as quality evidence and what does not, putting “a senior appointee designated by the agency head” in charge of overseeing “alleged violations.” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a briefing that the goal of the executive order is to “rebuild the American people’s confidence in the national science enterprise … the status quo of our research enterprise has brought diminishing returns, wasted resources and public distrust.”

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  A petition led by the advocacy group Stand Up for Science with more than 5,000 signatories says the executive order has “hijacked” scientific language to do the opposite of what it claims. The order, the petition argues, will “undermine scientific rigor and the transparent progress of science.”
• The administration has started divesting from research it deems irrelevant, distractive or counterproductive, such as climate science and clean energy, diversity and gender equity, health and disease control, and environmental policy. Federally funded research groups, functions and programs are being closed. Continued and unhindered access to research and measurement data is at risk.

All this actually began in Trump's first term, when his administrated repeatedly politicized science.  This was particularly true with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic,^[2] but also included suppressing research on climate change and weakening or eliminating environmental regulations.^[3]

Last month:

Nearly 2,000 leading American scientists, including dozens of Nobel Prize winners, issued a stark warning that the U.S. lead in science is being "decimated" by the Trump administration's cuts to research and a growing "climate of fear" that jeopardizes independent research.

Read this open letter from members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Last week, The Economist iterated, Trump's attack on science is growing fiercer and more indiscriminate.  Trump has cut science funding to its lowest level in decades. The National Science Foundation’s funding for basic math, physics, chemistry and material sciences research has dropped by two-thirds so far this year — research that, in the past, led to the development of bladeless LASIK eye surgery and radar technology that revolutionized weather forecasts.

There is, of course,  his Harvard squabble.  

The president says he's trying to force change at Harvard - and other top-level universities across the U.S. - because they have been captured by leftist "woke" thought and become bastions of antisemitism.

Certainly, Harvard is not the only university struggling over the Trump cuts:

Hawaii, 15 other states sue Trump over $1.4B in science cuts

Further:

“This administration’s attacks on basic science and essential efforts to ensure diversity in STEM will weaken our economy and our national security,” said Attorney General Letitia James of New York, who is leading the legal challenge filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.  “Putting politics over science will only set our country back,” James said.

Finally.

Established in 1950, the NSF funds much of the scientific research in the United States. In fiscal year 2024, the agency had a $9 billion budget. The Trump administration’s draft budget, published this month, proposed slashing those funds by 55.8%.

Note which states have received "special" treatment from Trump, mostly those that were not kind to Trump on presidential election day.  Hawaii particularly stands out, for Kamala Harris had her greatest percentage victory over Trump from our state.  Further, all our congressional members and governor are Democrats.  These are the states in the lawsuit:

In addition to New York and Hawaii, the other states joining in the lawsuit were California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Washington.

Of course, the Trump administration also cut funds to almost everything else:  arts, environment, foreign aid, to the working class and poor, education, people and organizations he detests, and more.  The key point is where will the USA and World be in the future because of these reductions?

I can  go on and on, but one more irrationality.  Trump likes fossil fuels, is unconcerned about climate change and is doing what he can to derail renewable energy.  What he really hates is wind energy.  Why?

• Nothing much to do with messing up his hairdo, although that must be an irritant.
• This all started with a feud at one of his golf courses.
• First of all, wind energy is the cheapest source of new electricity.  Now even better than coal or nuclear.  Trump has been quoted to say that wind projects are the most expensive form of energy that you can have, by far.  Wrong!  Again, disproved by science, research and even economics.
• Claims he is an expert of windmills.  Worth noting that this is an outdated term referring to those in old Netherlands.
• 
  Says noise from wind  turbines causes cancer.  Again, how can he be so inane?  Science proves him wrong.
• Argues that wind farms are ugly.
• Well, this is where much of his negative attitude on natural energy, like windpower, began.

• 
  In 2006, he bought land along the coast in Scotland to build a golf course.
• Learned that an offshore wind farm was planned for the area.
• This worried him about the view, and filed a complaint to the government.  They rebuffed him for good reason.

• 
  This was a time when he actually showed belief in global warming, signing an open letter as an ad in The New York Times that said:  If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.

• 
  But as his feud with the Scottish government grew, his view about renewable energy, triggered by his wind farm fight, changed.
• Then he said wind farms harm migratory birds.  This is  true, but the fact is that birds killed by wind farms are a fraction of those killed by hour cats or tall buildings, like his.  Science sticked it to him again.

• 
  So further, wind turbines harm whales.  All of his points refuted by something called SCIENCE and RESEARCH.  Incidentally, he is now pushing offshore drilling, which does harm whales.
• 
  So Trump's golf course was completed, then the wind farm in 2018, producing enough energy for 80,000 homes.  Photo to the right.  Can you believe that Scotland's wind farms by 2022 was generating more renewable electricity for the country, that some could be exported?
• And, by the way, 8 of the 10 states that rely most on wind power voted for Trump.  Iowa, for example, gets around 60% of its electricity from the wind.  Looks like, for him, personal pride trumps politics.

This final analysis regarding Trump's reaction to an issue where science stymied him, well explains why he hates science.  Anything that gets in his way just gets attacked.  Logic is irrelevant.  All I can say about science vs Trump in the future is AMEN.

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