In a time when facts have become the greatest enemy of the U.S. presidency, it should not surprise us that President Trump’s administration is trying to undermine science.
After all, the scientific method is the best way to separate what is proven false from what we can consider closer to the truth.
With many cabinet members determined to sideline science in the institutions they lead, budget proposals that would slash funding for scientific research and embarrassingly false declarations from a president who unapologetically disregards empirical evidence, it is clear that the highest office of the most powerful country in the world will not defend science through its policies.
Unfortunately, this is the time when we need science the most.
Our planet is warming up at rates even higher than expected, while our ecosystems are being damaged and, many times, destroyed.
Only the development of cleaner technologies in energy production, transportation, manufacturing and agriculture could slow down what is happening across the globe.
Public policy is a very important player in these developments, offering not only regulations and oversight for human activities that pollute our planet but also funding for much of the research for newer and cleaner technologies.
However, there are already countless indications that there will not be much of that oversight or funding coming from the White House.
An Environmental Protection Agency director who has denied the existence of climate change and a budget proposal ironically named “America First,” although it would virtually defund many of the agencies and programs that protect the natural beauty of the same country it is named after, are just two examples.
Sadly, environmental science is not the only one being damaged. Even math is sometimes questioned, with unsubstantiated claims of 3 million illegal voters influencing the election or employment data being “phony in the past, but very real now.”
The growing economic and social inequality will also require scientific approaches to the challenges of mechanization, globalization and demographic changes. But, so far, the only responses to these challenges have been an immigration policy based on Islamophobia, the proposal of a “big, beautiful wall” and a misled, and eventually failed, attempt at healthcare reform. All of those are policies and proposals with little to no science to support them.
It would be too easy and naïve to exclusively blame President Trump and his cabinet for ignoring science in the U.S. government.
In fact, about a third of congressmen were climate change deniers as of 2016, and many more were ambiguous in their position. At the same time, 97 percent of scientists agree on the subject, and so does 71 percent of the population, according to several polls. When will politicians finally come to terms with reality?
Francisco Hernandez is a junior international studies major from Valencia, Spain.
