The Assault On Science Funding Continues by Derek Lowe, July 23, 2026, Science
Time for another note about the Trump administration’s approach to funding US science. But let me make something clear right up front. When I talk to people about this subject (and that includes some journalists as well) and say what I’m about to at the end of this paragaph I am sometimes met with disbelief. But I mean what I say and I am trying my best to say what I mean: 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.
That’s it. That’s the story. They are naturally not putting it in those words, but instead talking about “gold standard science” and the “reproducibility crisis” and funding “bold inquiry” for “transformational breakthroughs”. This is all bullshit, and it’s important to realize that. Shameless hand-waving bullshit, delivered in a how-dare-you-think-otherwise manner is the defining style of the entire Trump administration. You can see it in every appointee, in every part of the executive branch, and in the pronouncements of all of Trump’s supporters. I realize that this is a simple heuristic to apply, and a very unambiguous and unflattering one, but I find it to be all too useful and all too accurate. Give it a try.
I have written at length about the direct attacks on grant funding via the NIH, NSF, et al. and I am glad to see that the public comments on the OMB proposals for revamping that funding were both overwhelming (over 50,000 comments received) and overwhelmingly negative. But the administration is pushing along on all fronts. The other day there was a call by Scott Atlas in the Washington Post to abolish the NIH completely, on the grounds that it had been captured by “special interests”, wasted vast amounts of money, and that its granting decisions were hardly driving any real scientific applications anyway. And now the president’s science advisor Michael Kratsios has released a report calling for more huge changes in how the government funds all types of science.
It is of a piece with Atlas’ editorial, Russell Vought’s OMB proposals, and all the rest of it. The emphasis is on dismantling the large scientific funding agencies and shifting grants away from academia entirely and more to industry and entrepreneurs. In addition, Kratsios calls for moving away from what he calls “life sciences” and instead pouring that money into robotics and artificial intelligence. This is all larded with the phrases I mentioned above and many more like it, to make it look as if this is a Serious Proposal from a Serious Person who is Seriously Concerned that the US ability to conduct scientific research and reap its rewards is in terrible need of sweeping reforms. And some commentators are taking him at his word, or some of his words, but I would urge them not to do that. Because this is yet more bullshit.
Arguing with Kratsios (or any of the other Trump officials) about whether their has been a slowdown in scientific discovery or innovation, about the particular funding methods that have been in use, or about which particular areas should receive more or less federal support is a pointless waste of time. That’s what they want people to do, to chase after those bouncing balls of policy and reform, while the real work continues – and that real work is what I stated in the first paragraph.
People who read about these ideas and who actually support these proposals grievously misunderstand how scientific discovery actually works, and they misunderstand the differences between basic and applied research as well. I am not going to try to teach them any of those things today, because that’s not the issue here. That’s because the people making these proposals do not give the proverbial rat’s ass about any of that stuff. They cannot be forced to understand the parts that they are wrong about nor to care that they are wrong in the first place. Imagining that these explaining-and-convincing tasks are possible and that these would make the administration change course is mere daydreaming. These people want money and they want power and they want revenge, and no amount of evidence or reasoned argument is going to slow them down. Save your breath.
Instead, it’s time for politics. Those public comments (as with OMB) have legal processes that have to be used to deal with them, and if the administration tries to shortcut them, then you sue. You bring suits about the very legality and constitutionality of all these proposals in the first place and you fight that out in as many venues as possible. And you ask for stays and court orders and for summary judgments and all the rest of it. You drag the officials responsible in front of cameras in Congress and elsewhere and grill them to put them in the worst light possible, and you use that footage in every mid-term election effort where it will make a difference. You talk up the disastrous effects on the American economy and on America’s position in the world if these proposals were to take effect, and you make it abundantly clear who will be to blame. You point out who’s in line to benefit from these ideas (the administration’s friends!) and how it’s yet another cynical cash grab from a gang of thieves, and that these are tax dollars they’re plundering.
And you do everything you can to run up a Trump-opposition majority in the House and to take the Senate if at all possible, because that will gum up the works even more. This destruction will take place most easily in an atmosphere of worn-out apathy and helplessness, so give them the opposite. Make it hard for these people, because if they get their way it’s for sure that they want to make it very, very hard on you.
Admirable clarity @science.org
@volts.wtf:
Whew, the editors of @science.org are getting real.
