There was an interesting op-ed in the NY Times today (it’s been a long time since I could say that): We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself, by Stephen Greenblatt. Can you guess which scientific superpower he’s writing about?
Here are some interesting data.
According to the latest annual Nature Index, which tracks research institutions by their contributions to leading science journals, the single remaining U.S. institution among the top 10 is Harvard, in second place, far behind the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The others are:
The University of Science and Technology of China
Zhejiang University
Peking University
The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Tsinghua University
Nanjing University
Germany’s Max Planck Society
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
A decade ago, C.A.S. was the only Chinese institution to figure in the top 10. Now eight of the 10 leaders are in China. If this does not constitute a Sputnik moment, it is hard to imagine what would.
Given Trump’s mantra of China, China, China
to blame that country, it’s amusing and depressing that he has completely handed over leadership in science to China. OK, and Germany. He is responsible for the abrupt change in status.
The article also makes a strong comparison.
From the start, this government investment in education wasn’t free of ideological interest. It was fueled by fear — fear of the Russians, fear of the atomic bomb, fear of falling behind in the “space race” — and intended to influence curricula. Not, to be sure, in the catastrophic manner of the Soviet Union, where Trofim Lysenko’s theories of genetics set back Soviet biology for decades, but rather by strengthening science departments across the country.
…
And now, notwithstanding its triumphs, the whole enterprise is in serious trouble. The Trump administration began its assault by using the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on many campuses to charge elite universities with antisemitism. The rationale has largely shifted to complaints about affirmative action, diversity initiatives, liberal bias and the like. Scientific research has been curtailed; postdoctoral fellowships have been abruptly canceled; laboratories have been shuttered and visas denied. The damage to scientific enterprise extends beyond our borders, whether it’s from the cancellation of nearly $500 million in funding for mRNA research under the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a kind of Lysenko lite — or the purging of data on which climate researchers around the world depend. We will never know what diseases might have been cured or what advances in technology might have been invented had the lights not gone out in the labs.
“complaints about affirmative action, diversity initiatives, liberal bias and the like”…sure sounds like someone we know at the University of Chicago.
I don’t know if I’d agree that RFK jr. is a Lysenko lite — he hasn’t come to the full power of a Lysenko yet, but you know that if he could he’d start imprisoning and deporting everyone who supports vaccination, for instance. Give him time. Give him a little more power and he’ll root out the Vavilovs in modern America.
What can we do?
For the moment, American universities still have the enormous advantage of their resources and their autonomy, and their joyous imaginative freedom. I walk through Harvard Yard on my way to teach a freshman course on great books from Homer to Joyce, and I am continually astonished by what I see and whom I meet. There are students from all over the world — from Mongolia as well as my hometown, Newton, Mass., from Athens in Ohio and Athens in Greece — and there are colleagues who have been immersed in a wide range of pursuits, from creating the first image of a black hole in space to deciphering the words on a scrap of ancient papyrus. We need to get up from under our desks and persuade our fellow citizens that the institutions that they have helped create with their tax dollars are incredibly precious and important.
That’s nice and optimistic, but I think it’s harder to restore prestige than that, and also we’ve permanently changed our prospects for the future — who would want a career in a US university when all it takes is a single election to completely shred our scientific institutions? We’re going to be forever aware that we’re on shaky ground.
While I agree that Trump is an absolute disaster for – among many other things – American science, I don’t believe the abdication of world leadership to China is his fault alone. China has been on an upward trajectory for decades, and it was only a matter of time before they would be a peer competitor of the US. Trumps policies have certainly sped up and escalated that process, but the US decline is the making of decades of US elites taking world leadership for granted and not feeling the need to actually earn it.
Under McCarthyism, the US purged many Chinese: from college professors down to undergrads, in the name of loyalty and security. So what happened? TheY went back to China where they were given jobs building nuclear weapons, jet fighters, etc. (See a book called “The Chinese Cloud.”) Only a few years earlier, scientists fleeing Hitler had helped us with radar and the Manhatten project. So McCarthyism and fascism made the same stupid mistake. And now we have Trumpism! The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history!
PZ already covered this but it also jumped out at me.
Calling RFK jr., Lysenko Lite isn’t right.
He is every bit Lysenko’s equal in poly-crackpottery.
He isn’t just attacking one science but attacking them all.
And his target is very large, the largest scientific establishment in the world.
The US not so long ago was spending 50% of the world’s R&D by itself.
Even as of 2022, it was still 30% of the world’s R&D budget.
What makes killing science easy is that the consequences only show up years and decades down the line.
Since science is the main driver of the US’s leadership position in the world, we won’t notice the loss for decades.
In the end, the US will be a middle of the pack country, a stagnant mess going nowhere.
QFT.
The other problem is the rise in open racism and the armed thugs the GOP is letting loose on our society. That is ICE** and yesterday, the worthless US Supreme court said it was OK for them to use racial profiling.
My old well regarded University is 12% foreign students, mostly Chinese. The graduate students are 30% International. In some science departments it is 60% International.
A lot of those International students have ended up staying and becoming STEM workers and leaders.
Elon Musk is a South African-Canadian. The current head of Intel is Chinese-Malaysian.
And so on.
A lot of those International students are going to think long and hard about whether they want to chance getting an education in the USA.
And if they want to stay after they get their degrees, they might well change their mind after ICE arrests them and deports them to South Sudan for having the wrong visa.
Instead of attracting the best and brightest people in the world, the GOP and Trump are instead, pandering to stupid white people in Red states.
**ICE has now shown up in my community and they are randomly stopping and questioning and arresting nonwhites.
It is a target rich environment since there are thousands of International students and thousands of legal immigrants.
Made worse because some of those are people I know well.
Over the past year, there has been a noticeable increase in news stories highlighting China’s ongoing achievements in science and technology. The Chinese have been consistently making significant strides, whether by producing groundbreaking research, realizing new scientific advancements, or publicly announcing ambitious projects such as their planned moonbase. These actions demonstrate China’s clear commitment to leading in scientific innovation and exploration.
In contrast, the United States appears to be moving in the opposite direction. There have been substantial cuts to scientific funding, the expulsion of science students, and the editing of government websites to remove or obscure scientific content. These measures suggest a retreat from the country’s previous commitment to science and research, which could have consequences for its global standing.
The combination of China’s advancements and America’s setbacks may result in a significant shift in global scientific leadership. If these trends continue, countries that were previously considered less developed—shithole countries—could eventually surpass the United States in science and technology. This reversal in scientific standing could reshape the global landscape of innovation and discovery.
With sincere apologies for being completely 100% OT, I saw this charming spider tale and don’t know of any other way to try and send it to PZ:
https://www.tumblr.com/radiojamming/715797085676601344?source=share
(the actual tale is in the second part of the post. I have no idea if that first link will actually go to the complete set-of-linked-posts or only to the intro bit, so just in case I think – I hope – that this may be a back-up link to the second bit on its own: https://www.tumblr.com/radiojamming/715798506365943808?source=share
and finally this is a photo of one of the two protagonists (the human one, that is. There does not seem to be a photo of the spider. https://www.tumblr.com/radiojamming/715798928484974592?source=share)
Hope you don’t mind; and of course please just delete if not wanted!
This depressing trend has been evident for some time. More and more (starting at least five years ago) I saw articles in the top tier Phys Rev family of physics journals coming from authors at Chinese institutions. The recent gutting of NSF and NIH and the politicization of the Dept. of Energy will just make the situation worse– much worse. Couldn’t agree more with the OP. We are so screwed.
The Western world would be much better off if scientists weren’t tortured round here.
Speaking of RFK jr., this is his latest delusion.
.1. This isn’t true.
It has never been true.
We never brought guns to school because it wasn’t permitted and mostly because it would never have even crossed our minds. The gun worshipping started much later.
He is delusional.
Guns and kids have never been a thing.
.2. What is ironic about this statement is that his father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated by a gunman while running for President in 1968.
I remember it well since I had just met him briefly a few weeks before he was killed and he was an impressive guy, especially to a teenager.
And of course, his father’s brother, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas while being president by a gunman.
You would think that would make RFK jr. think a little bit about gun violence but it didn’t.
.3. The causes of mass shootings are complex but overriding everything is the widespread and easy availability of guns in the USA.
This is the only country where this is a major problem.
.4. This is the guy they put in charge of US science.
Not impressed.
RFK Jr: We had lots of guns when we were kids…
Who the fuck is “we?” RFKwack’s siblings, cousins and classmates? I’m pretty sure even small-town and rural families who value guns for both self-defense and sport, didn’t just normally let their kids run off with “lots of guns” unsupervised. Just for starters, guns aren’t cheap and were never found in Cracker-Jack boxes. (Although, as Ed Brayton pointed out a few years ago, lots of kids did get killed in those “olden days” as a result of playing with guns their parents had foolishly left out for them to find. That was a real problem, but RFKwack is both misrepresenting it and pretending it was never a problem.)
Oh, and @raven, I should point out that RFKwack — while he is clearly both delusional and unhinged generally — is almost surely NOT being delusional in this instance; but is knowingly parroting Republican blither-points to please his Republican masters.
No. Trump is partly responsible for things that will happen later, to be sure, as @2 raven said:
<
blockquote>the consequences only show up years and decades down the line.
<
blockquote>
The present situation was baked in. This is the result of the continuity of short-sighted U.S. ruling class priorities for my entire lifetime. This is the hollowing out of a superpower by corporate greed, with overwhelmingly bipartisan approval. This is a diseased academic industrial complex that priced education out of reach for those not in the wealthy elite. This is American culture valuing profit over knowing true things. And this is the manifest superiority of a nominally communist, centrally-planned civilization that values knowing true things, and prioritizes it accordingly.
I can only hope for the sake of human knowledge as a whole that Beijing survives Washington’s plans to obliterate it.
Interesting; to the topic “American science is screwed”, you opine that “I can only hope for the sake of human knowledge as a whole that Beijing survives Washington’s plans to obliterate it.”
A baseless hope, with no justification, beholder.
Your style.
(BTW, China’s future ain’t looking too great; demographics and economics are not kind to bluster and fake data)
@10. the Trump enabling disingenuous troll who has helped create this mess : Whyever do you think that Washington – an inanimate object – a city rather than an actual actor eg the Trump regime that you helped to install)<>/i> plans to obliterate Beijing?
@ 6. opposablethumbs : For future situations like that I’d suggest the Infinite Thread :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/07/02/infinite-thread-xxxvi/
Or see left hand sidebar thingy of blog here.
@11 (which could’ve sworn was actually #10 before ) Trump enabling disingenuous troll : “The present situation was baked in.”
NO. It really was not “baked In” at all..
it was avoidable and this – specifically this massive, unprecedented attack on American science – would NOT be happening now if Kamala Harris was POTUS and the Democratic party had any actual say that would stop it.
There is zero evidence or reason to say that Kamala or the Democratic party would have done what the OP describes here or that they’d have appointed a contra-qualified klown like RFK Jr as Health Secretary or cut NASA ‘s Earth Science – & rest of its budget – so horrendously,, ad nauseam
This one more thing that is entirely on those who failed that most basic test of political knowledge and ethics that was the binary (Obvs – need Isay it? Seems so.) choice for who would become POTUS last year.
A most basic test that you obviously demonstrably failed “beholder” along with the rest of the Purity Disunity mob and Bothsiderists..
Reading recommendation on the topic: The Death Of Expertise, by Tom Nichols.
This NYTimes video takes on the MAGA/MAHA meme of the moment. Bet you didn’t know this: it’s primarily a money con. Duh.
You Might Have Already Fallen for MAHA’s Conspiracy Theories”
Note: Hopefully this is available to you. Don’t know how she does it, but she doesn’t pay for NYTimes access.
Small consolation for American science, perhaps, but it’s worth noting that the Chinese Academy of Sciences:
so Harvard is still the world’s top research university.
I believe prominent Chinese scientists based elsewhere are frequently given additional posts at the C.A.S.; I don’t know if their papers then get counted for both their home university and the C.A.S.
Up to a point, maybe. The Chinese authorities are still claiming SARS-CoV-2 was imported to China, with frozen food packaging and darstardly foreign conspiracies the suggested vectors. And denying the existence of slave labour camps and cultural genocide in East Turkestan (“Xinjiang”).
@14. StevoR Thank you!