Pri reviji Nature so zbrali prve odzive znanstvene skupnosti na izvolitev novega predsednika ZDA: Donald Trump’s US election win stuns scientists. Trump je v predvolilni kampanji nekajkrat odkrito nastopil proti znanosti, zato je zaskrbljenost upravičena. Za podnebne spremembe je denimo izjavil (res že pred nekaj leti), da so potegavščina Kitajcev, da bi bila ameriška industrija manj konkurenčna:
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
Prav tako zagovarja povezavo med cepljenjem in avtizmom, kar dokazano ne drži:
Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes – AUTISM. Many such cases!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2014
Podobne nenavadne izjave, ki neposredno nasprotujejo znanosti, prihajajo tudi od Trumpovega podpredsednika: “Smoking Doesn’t Kill” And Other Great Old Op-Eds From Mike Pence.
“Trump will be the first anti-science president we have ever had,” says Michael Lubell, director of public affairs for the American Physical Society in Washington DC. “The consequences are going to be very, very severe.”
Trump has questioned the science underlying climate change — at one point suggesting that it was a Chinese hoax — and pledged to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement.
Although he has offered few details on policies for biomedical research, Trump said last year that he has heard “terrible” things about the US National Institutes of Health; he has also derided NASA as a “logistics agency for low-Earth orbit activity“, and said he would expand the role of the commercial space industry in the US space programme. …
“It’s going to be critically important for researchers to stand up for science,” says Jennifer Zeitzer, director of legislative relations at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Bethesda, Maryland. That means making sure that the Trump administration understands how federally funded research benefits the country, Zeitzer says.
Many scientists reacting to the election results on social media said that the possibility of funding cuts is a major worry. “I do breast cancer research for my PhD,” tweeted Sarah Hengel, a graduate student at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. “Scared not only for my future but for the future of research and next years @NIH budget.”
“This is terrifying for science, research, education, and the future of our planet,” tweeted María Escudero Escribano, a postdoc studying electrochemistry and and sustainable energy conversation at Stanford University in California. “I guess it’s time for me to go back to Europe.”
Vir: Donald Trump’s US election win stuns scientists : Nature News & Comment.
Scientists: We want to hear what you think about how the presidential race will affect science. Tell us your reactions. #Election2016
— Nature News&Comment (@NatureNews) November 9, 2016
