Nature abhors a Trump


What does the scientific establishment, as represented by the journal Nature, think of Trump? I think you can guess.

Science advocates worry that Trump’s broader anti-immigration stance could pose a threat to US research dominance. Roughly 5% of all students in the United States hail from other countries — including more than 380,000 people studying science, engineering, technology or mathematics. “We’ve always been a nation which has welcomed scientific brainpower from other countries,” says Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, a science-advocacy group in Alexandria, Virginia. “We don’t want that to turn around now.”

Scientific issues have scarcely been mentioned on the campaign trail so far. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front runner, has pledged to boost support for research into Alzheimer’s disease, and has pushed back against Trump’s anti-immigration and anti-Muslim stance. When she was a senator, Clinton backed health and research-related bills, and as first lady to former president Bill Clinton, she advocated for research on women’s health.

Trump is a wealthy real-estate mogul with no political legacy to mine for clues as to his scientific opinions. In the course of the campaign, he has linked autism to childhood vaccines, and dismissed climate change. (It’s called weather, he said.) In October, conservative radio host Michael Savage suggested on air that if elected, Trump should appoint him as head of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Well, you know you’d get common sense if that were the case, that I can tell you, Trump replied, during the light-hearted conversation. Because I hear so much about the NIH, and it’s terrible.

It’s terrible? Trump keeps shrinking his constituency. He’s alienated women, minorities, and now educated people. All he’s got left are ignorant, angry white guys. How is he going to win the election?

Also, the lack of discussion of scientific issues is a problem. Science and engineering are important drivers of technological advancement, so even if all you care about is the economy those should be significant topics of conversation; if nothing else, climate change ought to be a major concern. Where is our Science Debate? We haven’t had a candidate for high office this stupid since Ronald Reagan Dan Quayle George W Sarah Palin — aww, heck, since any Republican. It ought to be great blood sport.

Comments

  1. says

    I’m not sure what he hears about NIH that is so terrible, but I do know that Republican members of congress already trawl through grant abstracts looking for studies about promoting condom use and contraception and harm reduction approaches to illicit drug use and other stuff they consider icky, such that there are certain well-known self-censorship guidelines for how we write those. I imagine that’s what Savage is talking about. Also stuff that just sounds silly like fruit flies.

  2. dick says

    Roughly 5% of all students in the United States hail from other countries

    What? That sounds to me like a massive underestimate!

  3. raven says

    If something requires factual knowledge or deep thought, you can count on Trump not knowing it.

    The US per person income increased 6X in the last century. Something like 80% of that was due to advances in science and technology. It’s the major driver for per capita income increases and US preeminence in the world.

    This BTW, is common knowledge and has been known for decades among anyone who looks at it or cares. Which means Trump has never even heard of it.

  4. Usernames! (╯°□°)╯︵ ʎuʎbosıɯ says

    Long ago, the “language of (hard) science” was German. If one wanted to study Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, etc., one needed to be able to read and write German. All of the important papers were written and published in that language.

    So along comes a little man named Adolf, who wrecks the country, first by causing the luckiest (and most astute) thought-leaders to flee, then making the remaining ones ripe for the picking by the Allies once the war was over.

    The Americans (and to a lesser extent, the British) invested heavily in nuclear physics in order to build The Bomb that so eluded Adolf. Later, with the help of Wernher “Max” von Braun, they establish viable and thriving rocket/missile programs.

    Within the space of 20 years, America is the place to be if one wants to study hard science (Russia did much better in chemistry, but due to the Totalitarian government of Stalin, not many would voluntarily immigrate there.

    tl;dr: America could just as easily lose the mantle of place to study science as Germany did in the 1930s.

  5. marcoli says

    Half of my logic centers tell me that Trump cannot possibly win, so the whole scary issue is moot. But the other half is saying ‘but he handily beat a large pack of Republicans to get this far’. So the first half of my logic centers are sort of crapping their pants right now.

  6. gmacs says

    5% of students from other countries? That’s undergrad, right? I think roughly 5% of my department is from the US. I’m the only US citizen working for my boss, and he’s not a citizen either. And then among those with citizenship, a few of my colleagues have dual citizenship through immigrant parents, or were born elsewhere. I have one colleague who was literally a refugee as a child.

    What would immigration crackdowns mean for us?

  7. says

    “Trump keeps shrinking his constituency. He’s alienated women, minorities, and now educated people. ”

    ‘Sensible and Educated people’ were alienated when Trump alienated women.
    I wonder what sort of educated people were alienated now that he made clear his stance on climate, NIH…

  8. whywhywhy says

    We haven’t had a candidate for high office this stupid since Ronald Reagan Dan Quayle George W Sarah Palin — aww, heck, since any Republican.

    Please don’t make the assumption that Trump is stupid. He knows very well what he is doing and how he is manipulating the media and the electorate. He wants you to think that he is stupid. Then the expectation is lowered and folks get blindsided by him. It is a standard tactic. I wish he was stupid, I would be more confident of him losing in the Fall.

  9. petesh says

    @11: You have a point. What Trump excels at is bullshit, as defined by Frankfurt. He worked out early that he could get laid and also get financing by bullshitting and erecting a super-confident façade. He shows an enviable talent for recalling trivia in order to abuse factoids in his own interest. And if he cannot remember them, he makes them up. Not stupid, though often ignorant and always unreliable.

  10. robro says

    How is he going to win the election?

    I don’t know, but amazingly he’s already won Election 2016 Part I: the Republican party nomination. Who’duh thunk it? I wouldn’t sell him short.

    What Trump excels at is kayfabe. Not exactly acting, not actual reality. He could just as easily be shilling for WWE. I have personal experience doing this sort of thing. It isn’t difficult, you just give yourself over to the fictional personality.

  11. moarscienceplz says

    Trump keeps shrinking his constituency. He’s alienated women, minorities, and now educated people. All he’s got left are ignorant, angry white guys. How is he going to win the election?

    Not all women and minorities:

    There are also Trump converts like Margaret Afif. She is an independent voter from Walnut Creek, of Lebanese descent, who is changing her registration to GOP so she can vote for Trump next month.
    “I’m not a demonstrator or a fanatic in any way. I just think he would make a great president,” Afif said. “Because we need a president that is going to understand our problems and create jobs for the middle class. I’m from the middle class, and I see a lot of people needing help.”
    Afif isn’t bothered when Trump calls for banning Muslim immigrants, or punishing women who have abortions, or building a wall to keep out Mexican drug dealers and rapists:
    “He’s just being honest and I don’t take offense at the things he said,” Afif said.

    Neither does Luisa Aranda, a Mexican-American born and raised in Oakland, who enthusiastically supports Trump, and his call for a wall.
    “We’re paying almost $4 billion a year in the illegals, the problems are not stopping, things have gotten worse,” Aranda said. “All the people who hate us are coming through Mexico, it’s dangerous now.”

    And this is in the SF Bay area, where there are plenty of people to point out how it is self-harming to vote for Trump. I’ve been in Arizona a number of times recently and everyone I’ve met there is a bobblehead, just nodding and agreeing with each other how amazing Trump is.

  12. says

    PZ:

    All he’s got left are ignorant, angry white guys. How is he going to win the election?

    There is never a shortage of ignorant angry white guys. And a lot of angry white women go along with that sort of “thinking” as well.

  13. dianne says

    @4: Yep. There’s a lot of inertia behind English, but since Australia and Britain seem to be trying to tank their intellectual community as well, there may be no force to keep moving that mass soon.

  14. jacksprocket says

    He’s got the nomination by a megalandslide. Some bugger voted for him. The Republicloons control Congress. Some bugger voted for them. Doesn’t look good for USA or the majority of us.

  15. madscientist says

    How will Trump win the election? Hmm … does Diebold support him?

  16. says

    “All he’s got left are ignorant, angry white guys”

    Sadly, that’s a “YUGE” demographic in the States.
    Complacency = Defeat
    At the risk of Godwinning this thread, Germans in 1932 laughed at that Austrian corporal and thought he could NEVER win an election. We’ve all got to work together and ensure that this giant Ommpa Loompa from Manhattan gets nowhere near the levers of power!

  17. says

    Please don’t make the assumption that Trump is stupid. He knows very well what he is doing and how he is manipulating the media and the electorate.

    I’ll call bullshit on that one. Trump’s actions are not those of a Machiavellian mastermind who’s plotting every move on his way to the White House. It’s quite clear that he’s flying by the seat of his pants, and has stumbled his way to the Republican nomination only because he discovered he could give the Republican base the populist demagogue they’ve been craving for the last ten years.

    Of course, everyone is afraid that he might somehow win the election in November — nothing is every certain in politics, and Democrats have plenty of evidence they can point to of how their party can screw things up — but let’s be real here, the demographics don’t lie, and with the combination of overwhelming African American support for Hillary Clinton and the overwhelming Hispanic distaste for Donald Trump, there is virtually no path to victory left for Trump. More likely, Trump energizes the Hispanic community like never before and they finally begin to exercise voting power in proportion to their numbers, and the Republicans will long rue the day they nominated Donald Trump.

  18. says

    At the risk of Godwinning this thread, Germans in 1932 laughed at that Austrian corporal and thought he could NEVER win an election

    Sorry, but Germany in the run up to the 1932 election was on the brink of collapse, and Hitler and the Nazis were already a major force in German politics. Nothing like the situation in the US today.

    In any case, I doubt the Democrats will be complacent. Winning the Presidency is the least of it. Winning back the Senate is a must, and Democrats everywhere will be doing all they can to capitalize on the anti-Trump sentiment to win as many down ballot races as they possibly can. The House looks out of reach, it’s certainly more in play than it would have been had anyone else been nominated.

  19. dianne says

    Sorry, but Germany in the run up to the 1932 election was on the brink of collapse, and Hitler and the Nazis were already a major force in German politics. Nothing like the situation in the US today.

    Yeah. In 1932, Germany had literally lost a generation to war, had its economy crippled by the war and reparations, and had its collective head screwed with by forces internal and external. And Hitler only got about 30% of the actual vote.

    In 2016, the US has a decent, if not brilliant, economy, a military where combat is almost safe, and culturally, economically, and militarily dominates the world. AND WE’RE STILL ABOUT TO GO FASCIST! This is too fucking embarrassing!

  20. ck, the Irate Lump says

    tacitus wrote:

    the demographics don’t lie, and with the combination of overwhelming African American support for Hillary Clinton and the overwhelming Hispanic distaste for Donald Trump, there is virtually no path to victory left for Trump. More likely, Trump energizes the Hispanic community like never before[…]

    Trump energizes the same communities that the Republicans have spent the last ten years making laws to suppress the votes of (voter ID requirements, new residency requirements, closing/limiting polling stations in minority areas, etc). If Trump tells his followers that Illegals will try to steal the election!, how many violent gunhuggers will volunteer to intimidate minority voters away at the polling stations? Demographics may not lie, but targeted voter suppression doesn’t care about that.

  21. dianne says

    there is virtually no path to victory left for Trump.

    There is one extremely obvious path to victory for Trump: Arrange a terrorist attack. I don’t actually understand why US-Americans think that Republicans can cope with terrorists better than Democrats, but they do. Trump would win and the Republicans would take Congress if there were an attack that could reasonably be blamed on al Qaeda or Isil.

  22. says

    a) Voter suppression is a serious issue, but armed posses chasing minority voters from polling stations? Gimme a break.
    b) Sure, a major terrorist attack could throw a wrench in the works, but does anyone really believe that Trump could make converts of enough voters in the aftermath? I don’t.