This is not good news. The Trump administration wants to radically change how science is done in this country.
On Tuesday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a report entitled “Science: A New Golden Age,” in which it lays out how it has viewed science, found it lacking, and believes the Trump administration is in the perfect position to fix things. It’s a bit unexpected coming from an administration that has been proposing crippling funding cuts to research and trying to enable political appointees to terminate grants awarded based on scientific merit.
The report presents itself as the spiritual successor of “Science, the Endless Frontier,” a policy document that laid out the case for government-funded science in the wake of World War II. The New Golden Age (SNGA) says that, while the concepts promoted by the original remain vital, the circumstances have changed such that we need major revisions to how the government is implementing things.
The result is an odd mix. It completely ignores or glosses over many things that the administration is doing to harm scientific progress. In some cases, it identifies issues that have already been discussed as problems within the scientific community. Elsewhere, it’s a mixture of political grievances, ideas without a solid intellectual foundation, and an injection of Silicon Valley’s perspective on innovation (Michael Kratsios, the director of the OSTP, formerly worked with Peter Thiel). As a result, it’s unlikely to have anything like the impact of “Science, the Endless Frontier.”
“Gold standard”? So he wants to buy some cheap crap from Home Depot, spray paint it gold, and call it science?
Jesus, but he made the oval office kitschy and cheap, and now he’s going to give science the same treatment.
do i get a prize for mentioning lysenkoism first?
Yes, Bébé, you get the highest prize like no one’s ever seen! I’s a bigly gold painted plaster star glued to your forehead by the magat-in-chief himself! (sarcasimus maximus)
Here’s where we all shout in unison: E.T.T.D.
ah yiss… who gets to be the golden boy of politicized junk science this time history repeats? rfk? jordan peterson? joe rogan?
Here’s Trumpian “science”:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safety/about/autism.html
Can we add Dr. Ozzzz to the list? He’s such a cheerleader for sciencey medical stuff. Unregulated, unapproved peptides anyone!
oh thiel how could i miss that it’s dracula thiel
We all know what this means.
Everything Trump touches, dies!!!
It isn’t the least bit complicated.
Actually they have and long ago at that.
This whole what causes autism is so mid 20th century.
We’ve known for decades what causes autism.
It is a lot of polygenic medical conditions with a high genetic component interacting with less well understood environmental factors. A few seconds with Google will answer that question.
The Trump regime has already done a huge amount of damage to US science.
It would take decades to recover and it probably won’t anyway.
My friend was a climate scientist in a nationally known department.
They all got their funding cut a year ago and have been scrambling to try and support their graduate students and postdocs long enough to finish their current projects.
She is probably going to drop out of science in mid career.
Her plans for next year are to teach a few classes and that is it. No money = No research.
This is happening everywhere.
Another scientist I know who got hit hard works for the EPA.
So far he is lucky. They haven’ tried to transfer him to Wyoming and hope he quits instead, which they did to some of the people he works with.
Science isn’t just an after thought. It is the main driver of our economic progress and our civilization.
By attacking science, the Trump loons are also attacking…the USA.
Not exactly Versailles, is it?
The US – Nightmareland.
“By adopting new social and material technologies, we can again accelerate
the pace of discovery. It falls to us, as it fell to our predecessors, to imagine new
machines capable of exploring the endless frontier.” – Apparently, he believes that a technology that swallows trillions and yet can’t build up the number of synapses in the brain (and can’t do basic maths) is more cost-effective than mathematicians.
I now installed a stock market ticker where I can watch the tech bros go down in real time.
“At its core, our challenge is that scientific research involves private information that funders cannot directly observe.” That’s putting it very bluntly, actually.
The document appears to be somewhat self-contradictory, as it simultaneously demands that politicians AND researchers should gain more control over grants. There are entire chapters in contradiction with each other.
I’m getting the point of protecting technology though: I wouldn’t want any more of mine end up in the hands of your country (no offence).
Well, your president is certain not to read the document (or this comment) anyway…
Science to be Marigolded and turned from a vibrant living thing into a statue made of gold eh? Seems legit for this president.
Maybe some of your researchers and students can hibernate over here in Europe until the Trump glaciation is over?
With a bit of luck, inertia will slow the project down until the midterms. At that point the Vandal tribe will get other things to think about
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe
The morons are on the march.
For you, echo of an echo, serversky: https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/04/22/there-are-no-marching-morons/
(@ ^ Morales
Remember a few days ago you were claiming ableist language was “deprecated” back in the day? Lol.
From your link the day was certainly not 2013. X-D )
Good thing Science is NOT getting Trump’s “Platinum” treatment then maybe? Or perhaps all Trump’s treatments of science should be called Osmium treatments because they stink?
Tragic thing that Science isn’t getting the Kamala Harris / Democratic party treatment which is to respect scientists and properly fund good science especially climatology and immunology, epidemiology, biology esp gender studies, etc.. .
Of course, we all know who is responsible for that & so very many more consequences of the failure to elect the more left wing party of the two options and their female, POC nominee for POTUS don’t we?
(Answer obvs all those who did NOT vote for and support Kamala Harris and instead undermined and failed to unite behind her when it mattered thereby helping Trump’s Fascist White Supremacist party instead.)
Speer said that one of Hitler’s science advisors told him that should ignore Relativity because it was ‘Jewish physics’. I suppose Natural Selection will be seen as ‘Atheist Biology’.
@ ^ submoron : Global Overheating, the gender spectrum rather than binary and so many more scientifically established realities already are so .. yeah. You’re right.
Hey, I remember that!.
I enjoyed Kornbluth’s work and the Kornbluth/Pohl collaborations. They were entertaining stories in the fine old tradition of “what if” sci-fi, But PZ’s criticism’s were valid. Morons are not a clearly-defined biological group and both the noun and the adjective are used as insults not scientific observations.
That said, there seems to be a widespread cultural phenomenon of skepticism or suspicion or downright hostility towards any kind of authority however legitimate, My impression is it’s that attitude which underlies the various forms of “denialism”, the Mencken quote and the election of Trump who projected himself successfully as an anti-establishment figure. There are hopeful signs his influence is waning and the midterms are going to be a crucial test of how far he’s fallen. If the Republicans lose control of the House and Senate I wonder how long he’ll stay.
@ ^ seversky : I wonder how much longer he’ll live.
But it’s already been far too long.
Far too much damage already donr. To allf us globally.
Then we’ll’ have Vance.
Plus whatever tyrant suceededs Vance in the Christianist White Supremacist rotting corpse of what used to be the USoA.
I do try not to falli nto despair and give up .. but .. (infinite stream of expletives..)
The Non-Kamala voter USAites sure have fucked us all species and planet-wide & in the worst possible way and that’s the understatement of all understatements.
Fix : Far too much damage already done. To all us globally.
If only that could be actually fixed in reality.
Here is what science magazine, the main US general interest journal has to say about the latest Trump regime atrocity.
This is the summary.
The Trump administration hates academic science funding, full stop. They hate where that money goes, and they hate who it goes to. They want to keep all that money for themselves, to hand out to favored cronies who can help them get elected and to steer yet more money and more power back into their hands.
This is their plan.
1. Wreck academic science by taking away their funding.
2. Steal that money and give it to themselves and their friends.
If you read their long winded nonsense, they talk a lot about bypassing the universities and allocating that money directly to “individuals.”
Those individuals will all be right wingnuts and their research will be just made up stuff like RFK jr. does.
Vaccines cause autism, the germ theory of disease is fake, global warming doesn’t exist, Covid-19 virus doesn’t exist either and is also a Democratic Chinese commie plot, and so on.
@ ^ raven : Then like the nazis and Stalinists thy lose.
So.very badly.
Becoz reality don’t go away even when they tell and wish and petend it will as if that will work & make reality what they wish rather than what it is..
It is easy to destroy US science and the Trump regime has with no real thought or competence, discovered how.
All you have to know is that science runs on money.
It takes money to pay the scientists to stay alive and you need equipment, supplies, and utilities to run a lab.
The most successful project I ever worked on cost $300 million. This was back in the era when $300 million was actually a lot of money and it was hard to get that much together.
We were congratulated for making it to the end without going over the budget too much.
Our project ended up making all that back and more in the first year.
No money = No science.
It takes absolutely no intelligence or effort to destroy US science. All you need is the power to control the funding of dollars, how much and where they go.
@ ^ raven :, Yup. the Trump-Shadow POTUS Miller tyranny know this and have done this now.
Now the predictable consequences play out.
To the detriment and suffering and loss of so very many.
@ ^ All o fus really globally.
Especially when you think about what might’ve been had more rational and better people been in charge and had the power to act better, sooner on global issues that affect us all. Beforeit was / wiullbe too late.
(Endless inadequate string of expletives.)
I reckon the anti-Kamala Bothersiderists / Only Unicornists /.Third Party Spoiiler cultists / No insults sufficent counter-productive, corrosive, toxic mob of fuckwits have doomed us all.
Every human on this planet. Pretty much every lifeform on this planet.
Tardigrades and maybe roaches aside.
Stuffed (understatement) because of them.
I hope that isn’t true.
I wish that wasn’t true.
But that’s true..
Isn’t it?
But, hey, they made Biden and Kamala and the Democratic party sad (Oh and Netanyahu, Ben Gvir & Smotrich orgasm)so ..Worth it?
No.
No it ( no words suffice) is not.
Climate consequences alone..
21.seversky
“ Morons are not a clearly-defined biological group and both the noun and the adjective are used as insults not scientific observations.”
True, but historically
“Historical IQ and Mental Age Tiers
Idiot:
IQ score: Below 25
Mental age: Equal to or less than a normal 2-year-old child [1, 2]
Imbecile:
IQ score: 25 to 50
Mental age: Equal to a normal 3- to 7-year-old child [1, 2, 3, 4]
Moron:
IQ score: 51 to 70 (or 75)
Mental age: Equal to a normal 8- to 12-year-old child [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Modern Status
Obsolescence: Scientific and medical fields abandoned these labels because they were imprecise and heavily tied to harmful eugenics movements. [1, 2]
Social perception: Using these words to describe human intelligence or medical conditions is now widely recognized as an archaic and offensive slur. [1, 2]
@18, 22, 28, 29, 30
You done with your moronic tantrum yet, StevoR?
It’s rare to find someone who is this tenaciously obsessed with one or two U.S. politicians, yet is so hopelessly out of touch with U.S. politics that they can be immediately identified as a foreign agent.
You want to know why 100% of voters didn’t line up behind Harris like good little automata? It’s because she was a terrible politician without a shred of authenticity who ran a terrible campaign. It is always the candidate’s responsibility to appeal to voters, not the voters’ responsibility to hold up a failing candidate.
beholder @32: It’s the voter’s responsibility to be informed about the candidates, you clueless twit. If any voter thought Trump was better qualified than, or less harmful than, or even just as bad as Harris, they were horribly, obviously misinformed and misled. And that’s down to Fox News and voters’ gullibility far more than Harris’ supposed incompetence.
To say you disgust me is a massive understatement.
Beholder, you might want to consider being a bit less of a wank stain. The political system in the US is completely broken, and utterly locked in to the two party system. Unless and until sweeping systemic reform is brought in (which is never going to happen whilst the two parties that benefit from the system remain in power), you can either waste your vote or use it for one of the two parties that always win, so your only rational choice is to vote for the one you hate least from the options of Far Right and Further Right. Literally anything else effectively benefits the one of those you hate most.
It isn’t pretty, but even in less broken systems there won’t be a politician standing that you agree with on all issues. Within the system you have, a vote for a third party (with few and very localised exceptions) is literally wasted. Even in the UK, which does have a few more viable choices, the First Past The Post system means tactical voting to keep the worst party out makes more sense than voting for the candidate who best represents your views but doesn’t have a chance of winning in your constituency.
Put simply, in America, you hold your nose and vote for the lesser evil and then spend the rest of your time and energy hoping to change the system through other means. We’re not a real democracy, so voting won’t accomplish much.
The voters’ first responsibility is to protect what there is of democracy against would-be dictators. Anyone who was paying attention would have seen that Trump is such a person, and would therefore vote primarily to keep him out of power. You, clearly, betrayed that responsibility – indeed, you seem to be proud of doing so. You are a fascist fellow-traveller.
Related to the topic drift: https://www.salon.com/2026/07/26/trumps-foreign-policy-enters-its-decadent-desperate-end-stage/
[pullquote]
@ 36 KG
The logic here is so insane. X-D
“If a political party is so shit no one wants to vote it, that’s the fault of the voters for not embracing shit, not the fault of the political party for being shit. Um, Somehow.”
You almost have to pinch yourself to make sure you’re not dreaming and there are actual otherwise rational thinking people who have been brainwashed into believeing this crap.
Silentbob@38,
Since your quote bears fuck-all resemblance to what I said@36, I think everyone apart from your fellow-fuckwit and fascist-enabler beholder will see that as usual, you’re full of shit.
@38 Silentbob
Both things can be true at once, this is not rocket surgery. Voters are responsible for how they vote. If they vote Trump over a dead dog, that is still their responsibility.
erik333@40,
Exactly. I have repeatedly blamed Biden and those around him both for crimes and failures in office and for trying to run again when he was unfit to do so, and Harris for failing to distance herself from Biden, but these failings in no way excuse those voters who voted for a man who had already tried to overturn the 2020 election, or those who failed to vote at all or who voted for candidates who obviously were not going to win.
@38 Silentbob
It’s the logic of a fundamentally antidemocratic Democratic party that has long ago given up making a popular appeal to voters, and regards democracy as a detestable chore they can skip doing in favor of order of succession to leadership positions, coronation by their megadonors, and perhaps worst of all the shameless capitulation to every whim of American corporations, without which they would have no excuse for incrementalism.
Give the Republicans a little bit of credit, at least they try to win by appealing to their voting base. They believe in democracy more than the Democrats do.
It warms the cockles of my heart to see like-minded sociopaths like beholder and Silentbob find comfort in each other.
@32. Trump helping and supporting bad faith troll “beholder” :
Those who threw the world’s most destructive tantie ever by not voting for Kamala Harris becoz she wasn’t a fucking perfect unicorn have no business whatsoever attacking others especially those who tried to warn them and who are holding them accountable.
“Waaaaaahhhh! Kamala doesn’t commit political suicide by taking on the proven might of the Likud lobby! Waaah! She’s not going as far to the far left wing fringe as I want! Wahh! I, I, I, me, me, me! I I get to tell her and the experts at it how to run elections & I say appeal to a tiny sub-set of people rather than the majority! Waaaaahh! Not going to vote! Waaah! Gunna throw my vote to Netanyahu’s & Putin’s desired POTUS! Waaah! Gunna vote for known third party spoilers and traitors who have ZERO business being in an election other than their helping Trump! Waaah! Waaahh!!”
That Trump helping disingenuous troll was YOU & the rest of the Purity Disunity, Bothsiderist, Only Unicornist, Third-party spoiler mob for fucking years and years and years up to and worse during the time it mattered most and so you do NOT ever get to talk about tantrums.
You don’t get out much do you, scrapings off a shitty shoe troll? Or you are lying or both. Nah, definitely both.
Unfortunately USoA politics matters. Globe~wide.
It would be so wonderfully nice if it did NOT if people in pretty much every nation globe- wide could treat USA politics with the same lack of focus and attention that we do to politics in Mongolia, Mauritania and Madagascar among so many other places but, horribly, the USA has a vastly disproportionate obscene, corrosive, toxic impact on, well, our entire planet here.
So, yes, we do have to pay attention and who rules that shithole superpower sadly does matter. It is important and so, yeah, people will call out those making it worse like you have done and continue doing.
Projecting like iMax there ain’t ya disingenuous troll beholder? Where are you from BTW? Russia at a guess?
Everyone knows where I’m from. You, not so much.
Everyone also knows that foreign interference has been almost solely helping Trump esp from Russia and Israel and, hhhmm.. here you are supporting the Russian and Israeli choice for POTUS – Trump – NOT the one who actually put the USA first, Kamala. Co-incidence?
Probly but still noteworthy. If anyone here is a “foreign agent” (FFS!) it is most likely to be our bad faith, constantly anti-Democratic (party and system) troll “beholder.”
At least automata have some working parts unlike the Putin puppets who supported that tool and science-denier Jill Stein as “beholder” did.
Also false premise there which brings me to :
False. Simply factually wrong.
Look at where former president Joe Biden was then look at the fact that she got at least half the vote and quite possibly actually won – being robbed by the likes of you and quite possibly Musk thereby putting “Genocides Don” in charge.
I’ve asked before who your preferred Democratic party candidate would be. You never answered as is typical of you with your disingenuous trolling and cowardice “beholder.”
Which Kamala actually did.
Note voters plural meaning all of them. A Majority not a rabid fringe of dubious sincerity listening to instructions from Putin and Netanyahu i.e. your OnlyUnicornist -Bothersiderist, Third party spoiler mob. Your own words refute your arguments here.
Voters have a responsibility to choose WISELY from their options.
In this case their options* were either Kamala or Trump. Either NOT Fascist or Fascist.
Voters in the USoA manifestly failed in choosing so poorly rather than wisely. Especially all those who chose Trump whether directly as Trump voters or indirectly as third party spoilers or non-voters and, yes, they are at least partly to blame for all that Trump has subsequently done.
So, as usual, when it comes to the Bad faith lying Trumpy troll here every word of what they said is wrong. I only wish the apocalyptic consequences of the USAite voters choice could be restricted to those guilty of supporting Trump and NOT those innocent people who did not.
The latter being everyone else on this pale blue dot that we all have to share.
.* Don’t like those options? Tough shit. Grow up. They were the TWO and ONLY two choices that you had at the time becoz the USA has a shithouse 2 party political system. Fix it for the future? Reform your system, participate and run yourself, whatever you can do. Sure. But USAites had that choice then and they blew it. Thanks to worse than scum people like “beholder” who should NEVER be allowed to forget what they did and what it has cost us all.
PS. Hey, Trumpy troll beholder, still give a shit about Gaza and the now much worse genocide there? Nah, I can see you obviously don’t and never really did.
beholder@42,
As I’ve already pointed out, the “logic” of Silentbob’s “quote”@38 bears no resemblance to what I said@36, but I’m not surprised to see you sharing their dishonesty.
On the other hand:
is such a gobsmackingly stupid lie that I’m amazed to see even you use it. The Republican Party is actively supporting the current fascist regime in the USA.
So, now we see that PZ’s original train of thought has now been derailed and ls lying on its side off the tracks.
@ ^ shermanj : Do you have something to say that you think is more relevant to the OP here? If so, please say it. I sure ain’t stopping you nor is anyone else for that matter.
PS. Did you see the Trump supporting trolls last line in #42? What do you think of that and what it implies?
@38. Silentbob :
You gunna apply that “logic” to Putin shill Stein’s Greens who were got less than 1% of the vote? Or other third party spoilers that got that or even less?
So if you judge which party is shit and which isn’t by voting then the Third parties are easily the shittest of them all by megaparsecs.
Also you know the Democratic party got almost half the vote so obviously by your metric it was NOT “shit” at all. Your own words versus the reality that clearly disproves them.
Oh and Trump got almost half the vote too and so you think that him getting that many votes means, well, what exactly? That he isn’t shit? That he isn’t an evil, demented fascist? That his voters weren’t brain-washed cult members full of hate and bigotry? A bit like brain-washed Stein & other spoiler voters except the Trump voters were at least honest about who they were voting for and not hiding behind bullshit fig-leaf rationalisations that any decent person can see right through.
@42. The Trumpist lying troll “beholder” :
Blatant lie unsupported by any evidence and contradicted by evidence. Aren’t we meant to care about that and facts and truth here folks?
The Democratic party is democratic. There were primaries. They tried to appeal to the majority of voters which includes people across the aisle, Independents, even moderate repugs too. Because that’s how you win elections – at least without cheating like Trump very probably did.
You cannot win an election by getting ONLY a minority of votes from one narrow base of people who insist on their nominees passing fucking purity tests or picking policies that are political suicide.
You need to unite behind a party that offers more of what you like and is more on your side of politics that you can then pressure and direct to become more of what you want over time.
Electing the party that hates your side of politics – and in this case will end Democracy so you won’t even get a chance to fix things – because the one that’s on your side of politics isn’t offering you a fucking unicorn that’s everything you want even if that makes it unelectable in the eyes of a majority of others is just so incredibly obviously fucking stupid and wrong.
But then everyone knows this and the people here that disagree are now clearly here in bad faith.
False. Note lack of supporting evidence.
Emphasis added.
Trump supporting troll shows support for the Trump party again. What a non-surprise. But still wow. Fucking hell. Orwell weeps.
The party of Project 2025, of voter suppression, of lying about election results, gerrymandering, Jan 6th, open Fascism and White Supremacy, of cosying up to admiring and seeking to emulate totalitarian dictatorships, of generally trying to destroy Democracy supposedly believes in “Democracy” more than the Democratic party. Wow.
Just drop your bullshit act now “beholder” your clear Trumpist fascism is very well established beyond doubt by that sentence alone.
Not that it comes as a surprise. Always attacking ONLY the Democratic party should‘ve been a tell long ago. How many times does the Trump troll “beholder” here need to prove they are a Trump supporter before they get kicked out for their obvious dishonesty and bad faith commenting? Their tactics are so obvs Trumpist ones too. Refusal to engage with serious questions, evasions, lies and drive bys. For fucks sake!
Oh and thinking of the Repug Trump cult party and the troll “beholder’s” lying words :
Yeah, those words don’t apply to Trump’s corrupt Repugs at all do they? Does that really need a sarc tag? Does the fact of the projection and lack of noting what the only real alternative party does and how much blatantly worse it is really need me to point it out yet again?
Stevo, do you have any family who could stage an intervention? You’ve mentioned a brother. Does he know you relentlessly bully the same person for not voting in a democratic election in which you’re not even eligible to vote in the way you wanted them to vote and do so at every opportunity for a period over a year and counting?
@ ^ The commentator who spent years bullying John Morales for no good reason above :
I notice your total failure to address my reply to you in #48.
I’ve dealt with your tedious and disgusting minimising of the damage done by the Trump helping troll “beholder” here before.
It is NOT “bullying” to try to hold evil people – like the Trump supporter “Beholder” to account and responsible and to provide some consequences to them of their actions.
You have as usual, totally mischaracterised my position and made ableist insults against me.
shermanj @46
Pretty much so, yeah. Too painful to rubberneck at these frequent trainwrecks. I just quickly skim through and wince while seeking topical survivors in the carnage. One hopes for posters who don’t get sucked into it.
I can usually tell it has happened by the pattern of the names in the “Recent Comments” section.
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
@ ^ Hemidactylus : You might want to pay attention to the Trumpist troll admitting they think Trump’s Repugs believe in democracy more than the Democratic party maybe? You know the party of voter suppression, refusing to accept electoral defeat and Jan 6th remember? Beholder’s last line in #42.
Does that make you think again here a bit perhaps?
StevoR @53
I’d rather reflect on the blue flag problems in Hungary and how they affected your boy if we’re going to go full derailment. It would at least be a healthier distraction from vicious back and forth that accomplishes nothing in the grander scheme of things. At least there we share an obsession. I guess this my way of applying papaya rules.
@ ^ Hemidactylus : Gutted for Oscar in Hungary. Another race he could well have won if things hadn’t gone so badly luck~wise. Oh and McLarenstrategyt ~wise too. Piastri’s got the pace, the skill and at times has had the car -when its reliable -but just had no good luck at all this year. So frustrating. What a weird season start too. Two consecvutive Did Not Starts then two podium finishes. Sigh. Think I’d rather talk about other things!