1. United States
2. Fla.
3. Letter

Stop the choice of funding or banning scientific research based on conformance with trumps political ideology. The world has been down the path of the state (or church) supporting only science that conforms to political/religious dogma and objectives: Remember Galileo: he argued and proved the earth revolved around the sun, not vice versa. The church excommunicated and arrested him. Remember the church’s condemnation of lightning rods as interfering in the will of God if God wanted to explode an edifice with lightening. Remember the Enlightenment: The movement was characterized by the widespread circulation of ideas through new institutions: scientific academies, and an expanding print culture of books. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and religious officials and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. The administration is treading a path that has a history of failure. On May 29, 2026, the administration proposed dramatic changes to the awarding of federal research grants. Rather than continue awarding research grants on the basis of a merit system established through rigorous peer review, the administration proposes to base federal research grants on approval by political appointees. Now Trump’s hand-picked loyalists want to dismantle it to advance their own ideology. As economist Paul Krugman noted in February in his newsletter, destroying faith in science and experts leaves people open to the idea that they should reject “the establishment” and instead follow right-wing leaders like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Let’s not stupify science through politics.