This week, Trump’s White House Orientation issued on how the federal government should implement its so-called “Golden stallions“Pick up. Science From the scientific advisor to the administration to President Michael Kratsios (who also heads the Office for Science and Technology Policy), entitled “Sound Policy demands solid sciences”.
In the editorial, Mr. Kratsios The claims to address Long -standing problems of the scientific community concerning the strengthening of scientific rigor, reproducibility and integrity. I can assure him that I – and a lot in the scientific community – I would love to have this conversation. But that’s not it.
The executive decree and the maternity of the White House are formulated in rhetoric that the scientific community will find familiar and resonant. In fact, a large part of the new guidelines is remarkably trivial, in the sense that it reoses many of the objectives that the scientific community has to increase the rigor, accessibility and transparency of science produced and used in federal contexts.
But behind this facade, it is worrying that the language which opens the way to the administration to undermine scientific policy –The same manual followed by the first Trump administration (and Congress before thatAnd the tobacco industry before that).
A golden opportunity, tarnished
I would be delighted to work in political aisles, scientific disciplines and public and private sectors to meet these challenges in science. Indeed, it was part of my work when I worked in the White House. Directed by a first week decree, the Blanche de Biden-Harris House has decided to improve public confidence in science by strengthening scientific integrity through government. In the following years, we did significant progress On this objective: to expand complete policies and officers of scientific integrity to around thirty federal agencies, creating better processes and installing a scientific integrity to empower science and scientists be protected in government activities.
It’s just a good policy, regardless of the ruling party. Science has been politicized by the two main political parties; There is nothing intrinsically in favor of protecting people and processes that guarantee precise information and scientific advice shed light on government decisions.
I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished – and there was much more to do. When they took office, the Trump administration had the opportunity to continue this effort. They could have continued this work between agencies by developing more detailed processes, by conducting investigations on implementation, by attacking emerging problems nuanced as well as other modes of science, including community research and the integration of new technologies in existing policies and practices – activities that would have brought the federal scientific business to new peaks.
Doesn’t the president’s scientific advisor want to “strengthen scientific rigor and excellence”, consider as a gift to inherit such a project to improve? It was a golden opportunity to improve federal science. Instead, we have A golden facadeBehind which is completely hidden the production and use of science in federal spaces.
Do politics with federal science
If there were doubts about the political nature of this effort, we can turn to the decree itself, which orders agencies explicitly and specifically to kill the policies they have developed during the years of the Bide-Harris administration. This suggests that the order concerns less the improvement of science, and more on politics.
Leaving aside the bizarre tone of Mr. Kratsios’ editorial in which he complains that the scientific community did not react as he wanted in the decree, the content of his editorial and the advice published by his office reveal several new elements concerning. More alarming, directives include “support for contradictory collaborations where teams with different hypotheses design to rigorously test the results, minimizing confirmation bias.” This is a nod to climate science “Red team blue team“Exercise, in which” climate skeptics “receive an equal position for climatologists as they unnecessarily debate. It is a tactic to undermine climate science in political circles that have received a widespread decline from the scientific community in the first Trump administration.
Real ways towards a more rigorous and independent science
I desperately wish that we are talking about improving the production and use of science in federal decisions. There is so much legitimate work to do collectively among the leaders of the scientific community. We could learn from different sectors and levels of government. We could integrate the latest research on the social sciences on how the best science can shed light on political decisions. We could create tailor -made policies and procedures for the many unique government contexts in which scientific information informs decisions.
Instead, we have obtained high -level rhetoric that confuses science and politics, depicts a large brush of Platitudes without political progress to be equalized and threatens to weaken federal science.
Rather, we have to strive to have the difficult conversations necessary to improve science in federal policy circles. Let’s move on to this hard and necessary work.