Annie Zhu - Q2 Blog #2 - Why is science so political?
Scientific research and education in the U.S. has been atrociously politicized.
I assume that many of you have heard about the Trump Administration’s cuts on funding in healthcare and scientific research. I’ve heard about them too, but up until recently, I had no idea just how severe those cuts had been.
As it turns out, the administration has billions of dollars in research grants and funding for medical schools and hospitals in less than one year. The Supreme Court continues to uphold its poor decisions, refusing to restore funding for COVID-19, DEI, and transgender health research.
The Trump administration is just cancelling money for things they don’t like; I can’t believe the country has come to this. We’re talking about critical public health safety, and political agendas should never interfere with that to this extent!
In California, critical federal grants have been slashed for universities. Science does not run on barebone, “relevant” research. It is an ever-growing body of knowledge, meaning that innovations in one area may incite enormous benefits in another. Scientific advancement stimulates the economy as well: new jobs, crops, and infrastructure have all seen vast improvements thanks to research. Research takes funding, but the Trump administration doesn’t seem to see that.
I intend to pursue a career in lab research because I have always wanted to contribute to scientific advancements that cure disease and improve global health. For me, seeing all of these recent articles about financial science in critical organizations like the NIH (National Institute of Health) is unbelievably concerning, but also ridiculous.
I won’t claim to know how to solve this issue, because the truth is that the world revolves around money, so science and politics will always be intertwined. All I know is that this current situation is terrible, and innovation will be inhibited if it continues.
Some of my sources:
https://www.ucdavis.edu/curiosity/news/whats-stake-research-funding-cuts
https://www.science.org/content/article/supreme-court-upholds-trump-cancellation-nih-grants
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ReplyDeleteAnnie, I completely agree with you on the fact that scientific research is critical, and the government taking funding away from it is “unbelievably concerning”. In fact, the administration has taken away funding from some of the nation's top Ivy League universities too, that produce some of the most important research output, like Brown and Columbia, and now even large public universities like the University of Virginia and the UC system which you mention happens due to “political agendas” I think people are realizing the issue now, though, as the new Virginia Governor (Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat) was reportedly elected because people don’t like the economy under Trump and more importantly because they want her to push back against conservative efforts on the UVA system (as the previous Republican governor welcomed them). Do you believe that less research funding could lead to us falling behind other nations? Your use of highly credible and relevant sources creates an appeal to credibility which definitely adds to your blog and makes me trust everything you’re saying a lot more, and you simultaneously use highly charged language to get your point across (like “poor decisions,” “interfere to this extent” and “unbelievably concerning, but also ridiculous”) which I think is fantastic because this tension not only emphasizes the gravity of the situation but gets your own voice through with the facts of credible evidence! Overall, thank you for an amazing piece!
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