TDS Undermines Science Cred

By acting hyper-partisan, Big Science
alienates half the country. No wonder
trust in science is declining.

 

A sure sign of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is the knee-jerk response of outrage at everything the conservative Trump administration does. Even reducing “waste, fraud and abuse” or lowering inflation and taxes and drug prices can trigger it. Retrieving hostages, getting peace deals to end wars, and getting murderers off the streets – none of these (normally) good deeds offers any relief to the afflicted.

Big Science (the journal editors, lobbyists, academic deans and talking heads presuming to “speak for science” to the media) has a bad case of TDS. It’s hard to find them saying anything nice about what President Trump or his cabinet has done after the proverbial first 100 days.

At the same time, oddly, these leaders in Big Science are complaining about declining public trust of science. Don’t they get it? By alienating 77 million voters who swept the conservatives into office, even in all 7 swing states, they shoot themselves in the foot by acting like a subsidiary of the Democrat party. Big Science leaders may have too much class to chant in the streets, vandalize art or paint swastikas on their faces, but the public sees little daylight between the radical leftists and “the scientific community” these days. Whatever happened to the unbiased, non-political search for truth about nature that “science” once represented?

What follows should not be taken as an endorsement of everything going on in Washington or in conservative statehouses. These sample headlines illustrate, however, just a taste of the negativity against conservatism in the journals and popular science websites. We argue that this clear political bias explains the declining trust in science by the public. Big Science looks less like a community of responsible well-trained scholars seeking truth and more like another special interest group clamoring for money at the government till.

Trump administration cuts funding for life-saving baby heart device (Health Day via Medical Xpress, 12 May 2025). Accentuate the negative and eliminate the positive: that’s the motto of reporter I. Edwards. Nothing said, naturally, about all the babies allowed to be born in the first place by the most pro-life president in modern history.

Trump freezes ‘gain of function’ pathogen research ― threatening all US virology, critics say (Nature, 7 May 2025). See the spin? A global pandemic killed millions, most likely by a ‘gain of function’ experiment gone rogue, but Nature with its extreme case of TDS, instead of praising Trump for freezing the funding that led to the pandemic, uses anonymous critics to accuse him of “threatening all US virology.”

What Donald Trump’s dramatic US trade war means for global climate action (The Conversation, 3 April 2025). Though published prior to the latest news on tariffs and trade deals, this headline from an egghead at the leftist science site The Conversation (more aptly, the monolog or diatribe) reveals a very typical attitude against Donald Trump all over the science news.

Science, not silence: Save US economic growth (Science Magazine, 24 April 2025). Get all excited. Get angry. Rise up in protest. That’s the tone of this hostile article. The leading American science journal prints this diatribe by Philip Phillips replete with loaded words, but not a chance for rebuttal by a conservative.

Scientists in the US are under siege. The Trump administration has placed a stranglehold on federal funding of research and development. Yet there has been hardly any public denouncement of the Executive Branch’s slash-and-burn strategy from scientific leaders, the national academies, or university presidents.

Good definition of Big Science there: not the humble field scientists trying to study nature for the love of understanding, but the “scientific leaders, the national academies, or university presidents.” Since those guys thrive on power and government funding, no conflict of interest is visible there, would you say?

People with neoliberal views are less likely to support climate-friendly policies – new research (The Conversation, 30 April 2025). At first glance, this headline seems to criticize liberals. Indeed, Trump is the first target in this article by two environmentalists. But it actually criticizes “neoliberals” who are not radically progressive enough!

The belief that individuals need to take care of themselves and are responsible for their own fortune and problems was associated with less support for climate policies. And in every country we studied, we found a strong relationship between support for the free market and lack of support for climate policies.

Such “neoliberal” people believing in freedom, they say, need to develop more “biospheric values” – i.e., globalism. They see freedom-loving people as hindrances to climate activism. Ponder that.

‘I will not eat the bugs’: examining a right-wing narrative about scarcity and insect consumption (The Conversation, 15 May 2025). Here’s another trend seen often in Big Science Media: leftist scientists treating conservatives like lab rats, but never doing the same for progressives like themselves. They treat “right-wing” people (their term) as anomalies, as mentally ill mammals needing scientific therapy. Why don’t they psychoanalyze the leftists screaming and chanting antisemitic slogans at universities, vandalizing artworks, and trying to get gang members released from detention? Their analyses are always biased one way.

Conservative Americans consistently distrust science (University of Amsterdam, 14 April 2025). Before shouting “Mind your own business!” to these Dutch eggheads putting American conservatives in their test tubes, let’s put them in our test tubes. Why don’t these left-leaning scientists ever take stock of their own faults? Why don’t they ever consider themselves to be part of the blame for mistrust?

Science helps solve major societal problems, such as pandemics and climate change. But if people do not trust scientists, they will be less likely to accept scientific solutions. ‘In America, but also in other countries, conservatives generally have lower trust in science,’ says one of the researchers involved, Bastiaan Rutjens. ‘Since the 1980s, trust of science among conservatives in America has even been plummeting.’

Correction: science is often responsible for major societal problems, such as pandemics and climate change! Why is there never a hint of introspection among these guys? It is rare to non-existent. Their posture is always to “fix” or “nudge” the members who distrust them (See “How to Nudge an Elitist“). Their stance: ‘We are the experts. We are the smart guys. We are the ones with understanding. You peons should be listening to us, otherwise you are stupid and your ignorance will lead to the collapse of civilization.’ In their echo chambers, communication is only allowed one way: from scientist to layman.

Maybe they should listen once in awhile. Humility, the Good Book says, comes before honor. Want trust? Be trustworthy.

See also this article today on declining trust in science by Dr John West at Evolution News. “The growing crisis of confidence in science isn’t because people believe ‘science’ is bad,” he says. “It’s because they believe the current scientific elite is untrustworthy.”

It’s time to purge my catalog of political articles on science sites from January to May. It’s overflowing with dozens of examples like this. They all spew anti-Trump negativity at variable decibel levels. Not a single one gives him any praise for any positive developments in what many hope will be a new golden age of prosperity, lower prices, lower taxes, health and opportunity. If “science” in 2025 lived up to its ideals, one would expect to see balance. The complete lack of balance is the reason so many distrust science— not science per se, but science as its leaders present it now. Consequently, discerning readers of science must understand and account for this bias in almost everything they read in the science media.

To clarify once again, our complaint is not with many individual scientists who do excellent work, who trained for years to be able to work on research projects many of us could never come close to performing. At CEH, we love good science and we honor those who escape the Groupthink Consensus, admit what they don’t know, and speak the truth. Big Science and Big Science Media are the culprits responsible for lack of public trust.

Let us point out once more that these same guys with TDS are most often DODO bigots. We can ignore everything they say, therefore. Their vocalizations represent only chest-pounding for fitness. That’s all life is about for consistent Darwinians.