U.S. SCIENCE UPENDED

IT IS A CHAOTIC PERIOD AND AAAS Science described Trump’s first weeks in office as “New Administration Upends U.S. Science.” Here are tidbits gleaned from this and related articles. Quoted comments come directly from Science, January 25, 2025. Others are mine.

Image by Stephan Schmitz/FOLIOART in Science.

“Following through on his vows to shake up the U.S. government, President Donald Trump’s new administration quickly issued a flurry of executive orders and other decisions, some with big implications for research and global health, sowing worry and confusion among many scientists.”

Grants Roller Coaster.  “The White House this week proposed—and 2 days later rescinded—an unprecedented order to freeze huge chunks of federal spending, including research grants. The 27 January budget memo directed political appointees at every agency to decide whether the funds ‘conform with administrative priorities’ as spelled out in a slew of executive orders Trump has issued since taking office. Despite withdrawing the memo, the White House said agencies must still comply with the executive orders, which ban support for programs that include promoting ‘Marxist equity, transgenderism, and Green New Deal social engineering policies.’ A federal judge had already temporarily halted implementation of the memo, which generated a public outcry.”

What an interesting trio of Trumpian irritants.

Banning Gender. “A separate executive order prohibits the use of ‘gender’ in government publications, potentially interfering with many research grants. It inaccurately defines gender as a male-female binary and states that gender identity has no basis in ‘biological reality.'”

 On another matter entirely, I wonder whether “Gulf of Mexico” has any basis in geographical reality?

DEI Demotion. “Another order ended government programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), signaling the demise of long-running university projects designed to broaden the scientific workforce by recruiting underrepresented minorities…. The terminations will extend beyond racial distinctions, as DEI programs also support researchers who are disabled or come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Trump’s order calls DEI efforts ‘illegal and immoral discrimination programs.’ ”

How often Trump mirrors his own shortcomings into his weaves. Is this Freudian or what?

A.I. Do-Over. “Another executive order nullified former President Joe Biden’s blueprint, issued in October 2023, to foster the use of safe, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence. Echoing criticisms by technology industry leaders of the Biden administration plan, Trump’s order asserts it would have ‘hindered innovation and imposed onerous and unnecessary government control.’ ”

In a related matter, a nearby item “AI Expert Falls Victim to AI” recounts, “A U.S. judge in Minnesota this month tossed expert testimony by a researcher who specializes in artificial intelligence after he submitted a statement containing two references, generated by AI, to nonexistent papers. According to the ruling, Jeff Hancock of Stanford University admitted the bogus references resulted from using GPT-4o to prepare his testimony, which discussed the hazards to democracy posed by AI-generated content.”

S.N.L. could not have devised a more appropriate skit.

And just to show I’m not simply cherry-picking items, here’s one from the same Science page-spread that has nothing to do with questioning Trump’s “very stable genius.”

Irregular Mowing Helps Insects. “Cutting grass in curves—rather than straight lines—and varying their paths over time benefit pollinators, a study has found. Industrial agriculture makes meadows less welcoming to insects, in part because most fields are mowed completely all at once, lessening their habitat diversity.”

“Mowing just part of a field at a time can help a lot, but how it’s done matters, a research team discovered. During 3 years of experiments, farmers cut sinuous shapes across some fields twice per year, each time keeping a two-to-one ratio of mown to unmown areas. The diversity of butterflies and bees was up to 30% and 40% higher, respectively, in those fields than in ones in which grass was mowed in straight lines and the two-to-one ratio was maintained. The curvy method requires more training, time, and effort for farmers. It could also benefit urban parks and even small residential yards, the team reported last week in Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment.”

Oh, geez. The word “diversity” showed up twice in this. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025