Three prominent researchers warn about the current existential threat in the United States
Helmut Schwarz has been reading about what happened to science during the rise of Adolf Hitler, almost a century ago.
The German chemist just received the Frontiers of Knowledge Award from the BBVA Foundation in Spain, due to his contributions to the field of catalysis. For him, there are parallels between the situation in Nazi Germany and Trump’s United States.
“From 1900 to 1932, a third of all Nobel Prizes went to Germany, more than to the U.S. and the U.K. combined,” he tells EL PAÍS. He and two other scientists sat down with EL PAÍS in Bilbao, where they received their awards.
“When Hitler came to power,” he continues, “German science — which led the world — completely disintegrated. But Hitler thought that wouldn’t be a problem,” he continues. Now, Donald Trump’s administration views universities — supposed hotbeds of progressive ideology — as the enemy. He wants to bring them under his control. “In my opinion, the threat isn’t immediate, but it’s very important in the long term,” Schwarz adds.
That's the weirdest part of trying to change the "system of science." It's not a system, it's a process, it's rigorous, controlled, and peer reviewed.
What Hitler enabled was psychopaths being allowed to practice torture and murder.
When he says "the scientific system," he's talking about the institutions we have in the US that educate, employ, conduct research, and/or fund people conducting science. I guess I thought it was obvious he's not referencing the scientific method
Even then, it will just slow research down and set us back. Scientists won't stop sciencing, and it certainly won't lead to discoveries they want.
The system they're describing helps but the people are the ones that matter, not the institutions.
My point is no matter their approach, they will not be able to control the outcome of scientific research. The anti-intellectual fails to understand this. It's the whole of their being.
Some of us remember the damage that Bush's stem cell research ban did and how it set the world back decades for literally no reason whatsoever.
This is going to be so much worse than that.