The good thing about Science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.
While suppression of scientific thought is certainly not a new phenomenon, we currently stand at the precipice of a new “scientific dark age”, whereby politics determines what is considered “factual science” and, worse yet, attempts to control what research is actually funded by “political appointees” instead of peer review.
Progress in science relies on open inquiry, rigorous debate, and the ability to share findings without undue interference. However, throughout history, scientific research has often been subject to suppression, whether from religious doctrine, political ideology, or corporate interests, often with untoward consequences for public health.
When Facts Become Forbidden – The Past and Present History of Scientific Censorship
History
Although suppression of science goes back as far as history itself, probably the most famous historical example is the persecution of Galileo for providing scientific evidence of heliocentrism. For pointing out scientific facts, Galileo was deemed a heretic and placed under house arrest by the Catholic Church. There was no concept of separation of church and state at the time. Thankfully, in modern times, the church has had less sway over science than it did then; although the rise of Christian Nationalism in politics is certainly a concerning omen.
More startling examples are found in recent history: the eugenics programs in Nazi Germany, the concept of intelligent design, and decades-long supression of the harmful effects of smoking. Current day debates rage on scientific subjects such as climate change and vaccine hesitancy.
So politicization of science is certainly nothing new. However, attempts to enact laws to control scientific inquiry are new, and menacing.
“Science Polarization”
A detailed discussion on the topic of science polarization can be found in The nature and origins of political polarization over science. The abstract states:
People have a tendency to disregard information that contradicts their partisan or ideological identity. This inclination can become especially striking when citizens reject notions that scientists would consider “facts” in the light of overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus. The resulting polarization over science has reached alarming levels in recent years.
Figure 1 of this review conceptualizes “the object of science polarization as the intersection between scientific claims, facts, and political beliefs”:
An important subset of this diagram is the intersection of “scientific claims” with “facts”, which is called “scientific knowledge”. The author uses the following example:
An example is the notion that water molecules are composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. This is a scientific claim because the public learns about it from scientific inquiry. The question why this statement can also be considered a “fact” is more complex and can be answered from two ontological perspectives. From a realist ontology, it can be argued that the scientific method is the best available source of objective knowledge that corresponds with an external reality (Leplin, 1984). Because the composition of water molecules is supported by strong scientific evidence, it may therefore be considered a fact from this perspective because it is “true.” From a pragmatist viewpoint, it can additionally be reasoned that the functioning of liberal democracy requires that citizens accept information as fact when it comes from sources that function as an impartial source of information.
That final sentence is key: scientific knowledge must come from impartial sources. When scientific claims overlap political beliefs, we are no longer discussing facts. The author uses this example:
An example is the economic idea that budgetary austerity is a necessity to regain long-term economic growth during an economic crisis. This notion is a scientific claim because it has been argued by economists who base their claims on scientific inquiry. However, the necessity of austerity cannot be considered a fact because there is no scientific consensus on this matter…The acceptance or rejection of austerity policies can therefore be conceptualized as science-based ideology because these political beliefs are substantiated by scientific claims.
Note the wording: “beliefs are substantiated by scientific claims”. Critically, one must recognize the difference between “scientific claims” and “scientific knowledge”; claims intersect with political beliefs, to become “science based ideology”, while scientific knowledge intersects with facts.
This review article then goes on to discuss the concepts of psychological science rejection and ideologiical science rejection in great detail, and is highly recommended reading.
Where we are today
In a prior post I discussed how the current administration attempted to “defund science” in the US last year. Thankfully, the dire original cuts proposed were largely defeated thanks to legal challenges and Congress’ rejection of many of the proposed White House cuts.
But, it’s a new year, and once again the White House has proposed massive cuts to US science. Not only are massive cuts proposed across the board but the amount of the cuts to various agencies is also being influenced by “presidential priorities”. For instance, the proposal is for 50% cuts to NSF, but to “maintain funding” for research on quantum information and artificial intelligence (a “presidential priority”). In actuality that funding is only being maintained in the defense and energy departments, while the corresponding NSF budgets on these topics is being cut.
So, we will have to take up the fight again on the funding front. I urge you to stay current with the information available, and to support organizations such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, Stand up for Science, AAAS and numerous others who are trying to educate the public of the horrible repercussions of these defunding initiatives.
The final straw
However, the Trump Administration is not just spewing junk science and conspiracy theories to justify their actions, they are now trying to enact legislation to legally poiticize science funding! And, as is typical with these people, they are disguising and hiding this bold move in a rule change document proposed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB):
In general, the new proposed changes are described by OMB as 1) improving transparency, accountability and oversight, 2) clarifying regulatory text and 3) reducing recipient burden.
Sounds harmless, right? Well, it’s not! In reality, this proposal is a Trojan Horse that seeks to remove scientific peer review from the government science funding equation, replacing it with “senior political appointees”. For a detailed point by point breakdown/summary of the exact items by someone who has read and understood the OMB text, I highly recommend reading Elizabeth Ginexi’s Substack post Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule.
The bottom line to this effort would be that science funding would be entirely controlled by political appointees, jettisoning the existing standard of peer review:
Since the post-World War II period, the U.S. scientific community has relied heavily on a system of peer review to offer feedback on studies and maintain integrity in research. The same has been true for federal science agencies when evaluating proposals for research funding. Typically, agencies adopt recommendations from independent advisory committees on issues including vaccine schedules, environmental standards, or census methodology.
While not legally binding, peer review in practice has been enormously influential and become part of the norms of government.
The reaction to this proposal by the scientific community has been swift and adamantly negative: ‘This is actually taking a page out of the Communist Party playbook’, “This would be the end of American science as we know it” among other statements. But the general public probably knows nothing of this action hidden deeply in an OMB procedural document that no normal citizen would ever read.
Imagine, for a moment, that a political appointee (especially one of Trump’s completely unqualified reality stars!) is to decide whether a particular area of cancer research is worth funding or not? That same appointee is more likely to green light a study to show that wind power causes violent crime (or any other conspiracy theory du jour)!
What’s even more frightening is the realization that the way this document is (poorly) written, it can be further applied well beyond scientific funding. Once again, I will point to Elizabeth Ginexi’s Substack for a deep dive: This new OMB Rule Is Bigger Than Science. Much Bigger.. In this post, she explains:
2 CFR Part 200, the regulation being rewritten here, is not the science grants regulation. It is the universal legal framework governing every federal grant to every recipient across every agency in the federal government. When OMB rewrites it, they are rewriting the rules for all of it.
That means that $1.1 trillion in grants to state and local governments falls under this also; think Medicare, Transportation, Education, etc. Now all of this funding would be subject to the whims of political appointees:
Consider what that means in practice. Political appointees who can override expert judgment and block science grants that don’t advance the President’s priorities would have that same power over transportation awards, and housing funds, not just NIH applications. Any active grant could be canceled mid-project because it no longer serves ‘the national interest.’…Entire categories of funding can be quietly discontinued without a public announcement or a vote.
If that isn’t Big Brother calling, then I don’t know what is! Now, maybe Russell Vought and OMB didn’t intend for the document to be interpreted this way, but unfortunately this administration is known for acting and saying first without consideration of what their words mean. That’s why everything they do seems to end up in the court system! If it was intended this way, then it represents a terrifying Trojan Horse.
Science doesn’t run in “election cycles”
Science is a long game… a very long game. To subject it to political review would be devastating:
Scientific inquiry cannot be run on election cycles, for reasons discussed above, and so deference should be given to the standing structures of the advisory committees within the HHS and NIH to provide and promote mechanisms to allow scientific inquiry to progress in a non-politicized manner.
Source: The Separation of Politics and Science
The degree of “whiplash” that would occur by funding science based upon the whims of the current political regime (any regime) would cause science to be halted in its tracks. The loss to this country would be unfathomable.
As I stated in my earlier post:
Science is by its very nature a recursive process: trial and error followed by continued refinement. For every one breakthrough there are thousands (if not millions) of failures, dead ends explored, etc. But we learn from them and make constant course corrections. Often times “unexpected outcomes” are the catalyst for deep newfound understanding of underlying concepts.
The process of science can only be properly shepherded by peer review. Even in peer review there can be disagreements on “scientific claims”, but when an overwhelming majority of scientific peers agree on something it crosses over into the factual domain as “scientific knowledge”. A great current example of this is climate change: with a 99% consensus in peer reviewed scientific literature, “there is no significant scientific debate among experts about whether or not climate change is human-caused.” Anyone who argues otherwise today is simply using psychological science rejection or ideologiical science rejection motives (see above) which are devoid of factual information.
Time to act
The OMB proposal is open for public comment until July 13, 2026. I urge you to submit a public comment prior to that date and also to contact your congressional representatives and senators to draw their attention to this matter. The proposed changes need to be rejected in entirety. Many of the organizations I mentioned before actually have web pages and LinkedIn posts that can help you on how to comment on the OMB proposal.
As scientists, it is our duty to try to spread the word to both other scientists but, more importantly, to non-scientists who are unaware of what is happening.
Not everyone is “in science”, but everyone is affected by science!
Update: 6/24/26, Forbes has jumped on the bandwagon:
A New Trump Rule Threatens Research Behind Every American Industry
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