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 sign.*

*The name of this blog comes from that protest sign.

References

1. There are underlying cognitive biases against expertise that populists can leverage for political gains: see Nichols, T., The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017). ↩︎
2. For a biography of Lysenko: see Medvedev, Z., The Rise of Fall T.D. Lysenko (New York, NY: University, 1969). ↩︎
3. For a history of Soviet anti-science: see Soyfer, V. N., Lysenko and the Tragedy of Soviet Science (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994). ↩︎
4. Gordin, M. D., “Lysenkoism”, Encyclopedia of the History of Science, https://ethos.lps.library.cmu.edu/article/id/560/ ↩︎
5. See research on “free market” belief and the rejection of science: Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, G. E. (2013). “NASA faked the moon landing—therefore, (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science,” Psychological science, 24(5): 622-633. ↩︎
6. Kerr, J. R., & Wilson, M. S. (2021). “Right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation predict rejection of science and scientists,” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 24(4), 550-567; Remsö, A., & Renström, E. A. (2023). “Ideological predictors of anti-science attitudes: exploring the impact of group-based dominance and populism in North America and Western Europe,” Frontiers in Social Psychology, 1, 1303157. ↩︎
7. For a recording of the Full Committee Hearing on Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method, March 29, 2017: https://republicans-science.house.gov/legislation/hearings/full-committee-hearing-climate-science-assumptions-policy-implications-and ↩︎
8. “Protecting Government Science from Political Interference: A Blueprint for Defending Scientific Integrity and Safeguarding the Public,” Sept. 12, 2024, a Report from the Union of Concerned Scientist: https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/protecting-government-science-political-interference#ucs-report-downloads ↩︎