The Decline of the Public Trust in Science: A One-Sided Story “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”1 “…conservative distrust of science is collateral damage, a spillover effect of distrust in government.”2 Americans believe in science. Their nation has been a world leader in science innovations and achievements from the start. Its “founding fathers” believed in science—it was a means to human progress.3 In 2024, citizens elected an extreme right-wing government possessing an “anti-science” agenda and owning a track record of persecuting scientists. Did Americans lose their trust in science? There is an appearance that contemporary Americans have lost their confidence in science, particularly considering the popularity of “anti-science” content on Facebook, TikTok, and “X”. Social media transmits disinformation and absurd doubts about many science related issues including the warming of the global climate, the effectiveness of vaccinations, the spherical nature of the Earth, and that human beings have visited the Moon.  Fringe beliefs of high-profile individuals spread like a wildfire. Google searches spiked when the popular rapper B.o.B. (a.k.a. Bobby Ray Simmons, Jr.) and the National Basketball Association “star” player Kyrie Irving professed beliefs in the flat-earth conspiracy (see the below figure).4 What celebrities say interests Americans, but why reject long-standing evidence-based thinking for a conspiratorial mentality? Perhaps many of these disbeliefs are transient like a fashion or celebrity status.  Predictors of the rejection of substantiated science topics like climate change and biological evolution can be linked to an individual’s level of scientific literacy, religious belief, and political identity.  The conspiracy-mentality is an emotional worldview that uses “viral deceptions” to undermine expertise or impugn authorities. Belief in these false claims are not merely for a lack of science knowledge; they are intentional political acts and displays of party loyalty. Republicans are more likely to reject science claims than Democrats given equal levels of scientific literacy and conspiratorial tendencies.5 Disregarding political party affiliation, however, Americans have a relatively high confidence in research scientists; in fact, much higher than they have of politicians.6 The Pew Research Center (PEW) reports that before the Covid-19 pandemic 86% of those surveyed had a “great deal” or “fair amount” confidence that scientists act in the best interest of the public.  From 2019 to 2024 this had decreased to 76% but the report also states that this is an increase from the 74% in the previous year 2023.  The public confidence in scientists is much higher than in other professions; interestingly, medical scientists were viewed more positively than business leaders. There is, however, in the PEW surveys, a noticeable split between those identifying as Democrat (D) and Republican (R).  The Republicans had higher negative views than Democrats about the personal character of scientists: “agree” that scientists are “closed minded” (R-61% to D-32%); “agree” that scientists “feel superior to others” (R-40% to D-17%).  What role should the work of scientists play in government and public policy? “Republicans/lean Republican” were nearly half as likely as “Democrats/lean Democrat” to say “scientists should take an active role in public policy debates about scientific issues” and 5 times more likely to say that scientists had too much “influence on public policy debates” (see figure below).7 Today Americans’ views about scientists significantly differ based on political identity, but this was not always so. The General Social Survey (GSS) is another data source for studying the public trust in science by asking respondents about their relative confidences in various American institutions. Over the period of 1974 to 2010 the trust in science by citizens identifying by political ideology, conservative, moderate, or liberal, shows an increasing gap between liberals and conservatives (see below figure). It seems astonishing that in the early 1970s, the trust in science by conservatives and liberals was equal. According to the GSS, the gap between Republicans’ (conservative) and Democrats’ (liberal) trust in science-informed policy decisions, documented in the recent PEW report, is over four decades in the making and is entirely due to a degeneration in the former, “the growing distrust in science in the United States has been driven by a group-specific decline among conservatives [italics in the original]”.8 The decline of the public trust in science is a one-sided story. Conservatives selectively mistrust science. They support “production sciences” which make new technological inventions, that benefit an industrial capitalist order, but reject “impact sciences” that research in the domains of public safety, environment and disease that have regulatory consequences.9 The beginning of the decline in the conservative trust in science coincides with the time of the forming of government regulatory bodies (Environmental Protection Agency-1970, United States (U.S.) Department of Health & Human Services-1980) and major environmental laws (Clean Water Act-1972; Endangered Species Act-1973). “Viral deceptions” that appeal to a “conspiratorial mentality” cause broad distrust in science, specifically when propagated by high-profile celebrities like a former “reality-tv star” and current U.S. president. These deceptions are serving a political purpose which is to scrap the sensible government guidelines that save citizens from the harmful effects of “free-market” ideology. The above predicts that the second Trump administration would act against “impact sciences”. On the first day of the Trump administration the U.S. was removed from the Paris Climate Accords, an international agreement with 196 signatories for cooperative engagement to keep the global surface temperature from rising over 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. It also predicts the new administration would favor “production sciences”; the White House announced an artificial intelligence initiative that redistributes $500 billion of public money to a few unregulated private companies. The new right-wing government will favor “production sciences” and distrust sciences that have impact or regulatory consequences. Does the average citizen want the same from science as the Trump administration? Do they want to be safe from pandemic disease and environmental calamities or see the completion of Elon Musk’s Mars fantasy?10 Unfortunately, Americans’ trust in science can be manipulated by corporate public relations firms and deliberate social media propaganda.11 A final thought: Americans have a higher trust in medical scientists than in business leaders. Perhaps they will trust science to protect their health more than the political ideology that makes wealth for the few, and vote accordingly. * The article banner image is a moment in the history of “anti-science” known as “Sharpiegate”. During the first Trump administration a hurricane prediction map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an “impact science” government agency, charged with weather forecasting, was altered to support the false personal beliefs of the president about the path of hurricane Dorian. By 18 U.S. Code 2074 it is illegal to alte […] “The Decline of the Public Trust in Science: A One-Sided Story”

American Lysenkoism: Political Attacks on Science in Stalin’s U.S.S.R. and in Trump’s U.S.A. I remember a rain-soaked protest in the nation’s capital. On a wet day in April, 2017, during the first Trump administration, the “March for Science” included thousands of students, teachers, college professors, researchers, science supporters, and even Bill Nye “The Science Guy.” We walked, chanted, and carried signs to oppose the “anti-science” stances of the newly elected government. Our placards were held high: “Science makes America great!”; “The oceans are rising and so are we”; “Got polio? No. Thank you science!” On the streets of Washington D.C., we vocalized, “we’re nerds…we’re wet…we’re really upset!”; the protesters rhymed better than the Trump White House reasoned. The new administration openly shunned the knowledge of experts and the evidence-based practices that routinely informed national policies about the environment, disease, and energy use.1 In the following years it appointed unqualified political sycophants to high-power positions in science agencies. Scientists with government positions were demoted and personally attacked during congressional “show trials.” My remembrances of these acts of “anti-science” seem destined to reoccur in the upcoming second Trump presidency. The huge public support shown during the “March for Science” was unprecedented, while the attacks on science by a ruling political leadership was not. State ideology and science inquiry clashed in Trump’s America as it did in Stalin’s Russia, and echoes the case of Trofim D. Lysenko. In the U.S.S.R., from the 1930s through 1950s, the modern science of genetics was politically attacked. It was blamed for “wrecking” the Soviet economy and threatening Marxist-Leninist “collectivist” ideology. The idea of the “gene” as determining fixed biological traits, was accused of violating the sanctity of the deeper beliefs of the Soviet State. Stalinists considered genetics a “bourgeois science” and an ally to the old status quo social order. A doctrinally aligned philosophy was found in the agronomist T. D. Lysenko. Coming from a poor peasant background, uneducated, but politically savvy, he was befriended by Stalin and promoted by the Communist Party.2 Lysenko and his followers believed that exposing summer grain seeds to low temperatures would allow food production in cold regions. If Soviet society could break the history of class structure, then summer wheat and rye must overcome heredity to grow in the winter. Lysenko’s pseudoscience replaced established biological science ideas on plant growth. Government scientists were replaced by faithful acolytes of Lysenko. Three thousand scientists were forced out of academia or removed from jobs, arrested, imprisoned and many executed. For decades, the Russian agriculture stumbled resulting in famines and the deaths of millions by starvation.3 From this history of the Soviet Union, “Lysenkoism” is defined as the repression by the State of science knowledge for perceived threats to a central dogma.4 During the first Trump presidency there was an American style of Lysenkoism that regarded “science” as a menace, not to collectivism but to individualism, and not to Marxist-Leninism but to unregulated corporate capitalism; it was empowered not by the Communist Party but by the Republican Party. Belief in free market capitalism, as a means to individual freedom, the central dogma of the Republican Party, is a cognitive predictor of the denial of science findings.5 Right-wing authoritarianism is linked to the rejection of a broad arrange of topics supported by a mainstream science consensus, including climate change, vaccination, evolution, and fluoridation. Research consistently demonstrates a high correlation between political conservatism and “anti-science” beliefs.6 Fields of science research that have policy implications for dealing with environmental degradation, global warming, and the coronavirus pandemic, and hint at potential government regulation or international cooperation or the general disruption of “business as usual” are the ideological targets of free market partisans. American Lysenkoism intimidates scientists by threats of subpoenas, congressional investigations, gag orders on research, the loss of research funding, removal of access to data, coordinated media smear campaigns, email hacking, and the deliberate undermining of expert opinion. After the first Trump inauguration, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a “show trial” attacking the reputation of climate science.7 The televised hearing showed Republicans espousing the same conspiracy beliefs of the party leader and demeaning a leading scientist; it was clear they could not dispute the message of climate change so they attacked the messenger. In the years after, scientists were replaced by cronies, party loyalists, industry insiders—many who were also climate change deniers. To disrupt climate change research many positions for career scientists and environment policy professionals were simply left open. A report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Protecting Government Science from Political Interference,” documented over the four years of the first Trump administration 200 plus attacks on science—censorship, politicization of grants, halting of studies and sidelining of critical science advisory groups.8 See the below figure for a comparison of Democratic and Republican administrations. The rise of authoritarian political systems is concurrent with the rise of anti-science beliefs; dictatorial rule is historically linked to a broader anti-intellectualism. Beyond the similarities of the Stalinist and the Trumpist “anti-science” eras the potential impact on the world by the latter is greater. Soviet Lysenkoism mostly affected the so called “Eastern Bloc” countries. Because climate change and pandemics are global phenomena American Lysenkoism has the potential for impacting the entire human population. Based on the leadership appointments to the Department of Energy, National Institute of Health, NASA, etc. the next few years will see a renewed right-wing anti-science movement and another episode of American Lysenkoism. In future blogs, I’ll define “science” to anchor the definition of “anti-science”. Also, I will report about the latest attacks on the integrity of science by the ultra-conservative government and on the public trust and understanding of science. The flavor of my blogs is personal, punctuated by attempts at humor, but integrates replicable observations and evidenced-based explanations. Until then, I’m brushing the dust off my old protest […] “American Lysenkoism: Political Attacks on Science in Stalin’s U.S.S.R. and in Trump’s U.S.A.”

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