If Peter Thiel is so concerned about scientific progress, maybe he shouldn't spend so much time and money supporting a regime that's openly hostile to science. Just a thought.
He'd likely argue that, despite the prior regimes' professed love of Science!, the same trends were present before. I.e. the podcast's content wouldn't have changed at all in 2016 vs 2019.
Short-term control of the executive branch in the American system is fairly disconnected from the multi-decade incentives that move the directions of scientific research.
We've been hearing this "both sides are equally bad" argument from Republican apologists for years, but by now there's a mountain of evidence that it's simply not true. Republican efforts to gut and silence science within the government have done profound damage.
Short-term control of the executive branch in the American system is fairly disconnected from the multi-decade incentives that move the directions of scientific research.