[waterthrowaway]

As a physical oceanographer, the destruction of these observing systems is horrific.

It is hard to stress enough how intentionally OMB is trying to disassemble American science. The new (proposed) OMB guidelines prohibit international collaboration without pre approval for example. They also codify a political grant approval process. https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/the-office-of-manage...

Additionally, OMB is not releasing the congressional appropriated funds that they are required to. This is currently tanking the post-doctoral researcher market and eventually will wipe out a generation of researchers if it isn’t stopped. https://grant-witness.us/funding_curves_nsf.html

Please call your elected representatives! It is so so important! https://5calls.org/issue/federal-financial-assistance-scienc...

[epistasis]

The other thing they've done is make it possible to cancel any grant at any time if it goes against the politics of the current executive administration.

Science has flourished in the US precisely because it could proceed without whimsical political picking and choosing, entire areas of science have flourished that would never have happened otherwise.

That's not to say that politics is completely out of science, Congress has done things like ban any research money for gun safety, for example. But that had to make it through Congress, a vote across party lines, instead of just being the political whim of some bureaucrat that can cancel whatever they want whenever they want.

For every issue you read about here on HN, there are about 10 other policy changes designed to destroy the US's scientific infrastructure. It doesn't get much attention because of all the other chaos going on, and scientists tend to be pretty quiet and try to stay apolitical, but it is truly a full-on crisis in the scientific research community right now. You won't see immediate effects, but in 10-20 years when China zooms ahead of the US on all research fronts and the US is left out of key technology and science directions, we will feel it then.

[btown]

And the non-cancellable nature of grants is not just a nice-to-have, it's absolutely critical for research with upfront capital costs (buying equipment, building labs, etc.)

The very _fact_ that this is a policy is disrupting research, even if specific grants haven't been cancelled. Some universities are stepping in to backstop, but it's a powerful chilling effect.

[Loquebantur]

People here are missing that they're not dismantling random things. There is a system to it, the objective of which is far more sinister than mere ideology.

The sensors in question here are crucial to monitor the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

They don't want that monitored because it is currently breaking down. Not some arbitrary far away time, now.

The science of this gets astroturfed into some nonsense "we don't really know". We do.

But conveniently, now the data to show this to the incredulous won't exist.

[smackeyacky]

When did evidence ever change the minds of the incredulous? The whole debate has become so polluted by the forces who want no action on climate change we can’t even use the original description any more.

[epistasis]

Some of the specific grants that have been cancelled are shocking in the negative effect they will have on the ecosystem. Cutting off Sean Eddy, a giant in DNA analysis, just baffles the mind:

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/11/nx-s1-5807995/some-researcher...

There's not even any political angle to pursue here, it is just lighting knowledge on fire with no grander purpose.

[vkou]

> There's not even any political angle to pursue here, it is just lighting knowledge on fire with no grander purpose.

Fucking with people who are capable of reading and writing is the political angle. Pol Pot took this sort of logic a few steps further in Cambodia a few decades ago.

MAGA, meanwhile, is only 'considering' suspending things like habeas corpus.

[pvaldes]

Understandable, as DNA analysis takes all the fun from raping people without consequences, making it much more inconvenient to hide. Criminals from the entire planet hate DNA analysis with passion. War criminals and sex criminals specially.

[saalweachter]

A professor I worked for in college was a big fan of how the US funding was fragmented, with some coming from the NSF, some from NIH, Energy Ag, each branch of the military... if one department had a loon in charge, the others would keep things running smoothly.

[epistasis]

Yeah, that was one massive benefit of the fragmentation of scientific funding, just like how in the private sector there's a great diversity of funders, of employers, etc. etc. etc.

All that's now been reduced to a single kill switch at the very top, and they're trying to change all the non-political positions into political appointees so that they have control not only with a veto at the top, but control of every single decision along the entire way, without any of that pesky scientific merit getting in the way.

[toomuchtodo]

https://www.project2025.observer/

[Duwensatzaj]

>Science has flourished in the US precisely because it could proceed without whimsical political picking and choosing

Please don't take this as a defense of the Trump administration pulling these ocean sensors, but the previous administration also had political demands on grants. One of the better articles about this I've found is "Politicizing science funding undermines public trust in science, academic freedom, and the unbiased generation of knowledge" - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/research-metrics-and-an...

This ended up getting grants cancelled because they'd throw in a line so the DEI checkbox would get checked, and then Cruz went through with a hacksaw and cancelled the grant for it, as Scott Alexander found - https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/only-about-40-of-the-cruz-w...

[dragant]

This is a good point but its apple vs oranges. This administration is literally politicizing and destroying science funding.

[Duwensatzaj]

Agreed on the second part, it's pretty terrible. Just absolutely wasteful, and the proposed centralization of research funding is the wrong direction.

Disagree on the first. It wasn't as crude, but the politicization was absolutely there.

[WhitneyLand]

OMB = “Office of Management and Budget”.

It’s a White House office run by Russell Vought, highly ideological maga institutionalist.

[pupppet]

I thought it might be Orange Man Baby.

[msie]

Sadly, he will not be jailed for all the destruction he has caused. Can we send him the repair bill after he's out of office?

[tadfisher]

Also famous for being a principal architect and author of Project 2025, which explicitly calls for impoundment as a mechanism for expanding presidential authority to control the Federal budget for political purposes.

[FrustratedMonky]

In order to usher in their Theocratic Dictatorship, they need to have an un-educated population. This is the start. I hope it takes a few generations and the tide can be turned. But at this rate, the US might end within the next couple years, not decades.

I don't think they are really even trying to hide it. Project 2025 was pretty obvious road map.

[gwerbin]

It's not even about an uneducated population. It's about preventing research that might be inconvenient politically. Ocean sensors provide evidence of climate change and the current political agenda is to suppress evidence of climate change.

[jauntywundrkind]

anyone knowing anything is dangerous to fascists. unmoored radicalism does not appreciate competent people.

destroying the professional class and reducing everyone to serfs has been an active ongoing never-closed plot against America that has never been snuffed out, and that is having it's day. the Business Plot people walk among us, and here, 93 years latter, they are getting the hollowing out of the state and any possible upstanding world anchored in anything good that they've worked for. these people, these people, these people.

[gwerbin]

I fully 100% agree with this, but in this case I don't think there is much consideration for the education system one way or another. I'm not saying it's not happening, I just think it's a distinct project, carried out using different methods, by different actors and agencies than what we see here.

[quantified]

Also trying to indebt the government so much as to prevent anything useful from being restored.

[ceejayoz]

(and one of the authors of Project 2025)

[SilverElfin]

He’s a self described Christian nationalist. He literally believes the laws should reflect Christian morals and views. Like a right wing sharia. And that’s what Project 2025 includes. Things like age verification for porn are meant to be backdoor porn bans, and also meant to hurt gay and lesbian culture. But it’s based on a puritanical Christian theocratic sort of view.

[pstuart]

It's borderline evil. The only reason they are doing this is to silence the science that contradicts their agenda.

I get the part about old school corruption where your cronies get to steal from the government (hello Big Coal/Big Oil), but to figuratively shit on the people of the world out of spite takes it to a whole new level...of evil.

[frogperson]

The elected reps are captured by business interests. Citizens united means the best marketing team wins every election. The reps do not work for citizens, why would they? Voting has been nullified, democracy is dead.

[red-iron-pine]

US business interests are fine with the US funding science they can use

these are foreign interests, and it's 100% clear who is behind it.

[phyzix5761]

We haven't started the Democracy phase yet in the US. It's a constitutional republic and its working exactly as designed by the founding fathers. The wealthy elite stay in control of the Senate (equivalent to the House of Lords) and the citizens get to have their say in the House (equivalent to the House of Commons). In this system nothing becomes law unless approved by the Lords of the Senate.

This started as an Aristocracy with well meaning participants but its evolved into an Oligarchy just as anacyclosis[1] predicts. The next stage is Democracy and then that, eventually, crumbles into mob rule (Ochlocracy).

[1] https://anacyclosis.org/portfolio/what-is-anacyclosis/

[20after4]

It feels more like we've jumped straight to mob rule (with tinges of oligarchy, which are not new really)

[xg15]

Can anyone explain that "anti-science" crusade to me? This doesn't seem to have any effect than reduce America's standing in the world.

[adithyareddy]

They're ideological goals, not technical ones. If they don't make sense to you it's because you're not viewing it through their ideological lens.

[st-keller]

If you want to be an authoritarian ruler, truth is the first thing you have to eliminate! If noone knows what is true, a leader can tell you what to believe! Science is our method to determine truth! A führer cannot have that!

[gpm]

More than that if you're a professor (and thus an educator for the next generation) you're now incentivized to modify your speech in favour of the authoritarian in order to keep getting funding.

I wouldn't underestimate the degree to which funding to these is being cut because climate scientists have historically been politically opposed to certain large republican donors that make their fortunes burning fossil fuels.

[Hikikomori]

It was also the first things Hitler and Mussolini did once they got power.

[epistasis]

And Mao and Lenin! Stalin's efforts at this are unparalleled, honestly, and we even allied with that asshole against Hitler and Mussolini.

All totalitarians eliminate any other source of truth, power, or influence except themselves.

[justin66]

They're isolationists. They do not care about America's standing in the world.

[wnevets]

> reduce America's standing in the world.

That is the goal.

[jackyinger]

A small price to pay to increase the standing of a select few. /s

[red-iron-pine]

the cyberpunk dystopia won't build itself

[munificent]

The primary goal of authoritarianism is consolidation of power among a small number of elites. Anything that can reduce that power is an enemy.

The essential weakness that the powerful elites have is that they are, by definition, outnumbered. So in order to consolidate and maintain power, they need to disturb any system that the masses can use to coordinate and form collective action.

(It's a kid's movie, but Hopper's speech in "A Bug's Life" captures this very well: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1hfo90u/hoppers_jus...)

Reality has a strong consensus-creating effect. We all live in the same material world, so simply by understanding it better and sharing that understanding, we will automatically trend towards having more common ground and more agreement.

That's a threat to elite power, so authoritarian governments have always been anti-science. They may pay it lip service, or attempt to harness it to their own ends, but they never want an entire populace that it well-educated and grounded in reality, because well-informed masses are harder to divide and conquer.

[throwpoaster]

The steel man is that you can’t peer review your way to breakthroughs that change consensus, because peer review relies on consensus, so peer review has to be made subordinate to accountable decision makers.

[kevin_thibedeau]

It's all outlined in Gulliver's Travels.

[toomuchtodo]

If we do not have objective facts and data, the truth is whatever the loudest person says it is.

[epistasis]

Pretty much every single part of Project 2025 is designed to reduce America's standing in the world, not just the anti-science parts of it.

It's a general trend across all authoritarian regimes; it's harder to be authoritarian with lots of international connections, with lots of strength and partnerships.

Autarky, authoritarianism, isolation, all go together (along with weak economies, etc., but the goal isn't to have the biggest amount of pie, the goal is to be able to control all the pie slices and take the biggest portion, even if the pie is far smaller.)

[jaybrendansmith]

When do we get to the part where we all collectively wake up and realize they are the enemy of the American People? You know, the part with the guillotines?

[datsci_est_2015]

You can read the profiles of people who run in the circles of those who have decision-making powers.

Take for example the Wikipedia article for Liz Peek[1]:

> Peek spent more than 20 years on Wall Street as a research analyst focused on the oil industry. She began working for Wertheim & Company in 1975 and in 1983, was one of the first women to become partner at a Wall Street investment firm.

> Peek was the first woman elected president of the National Association of Petroleum Investment Analysts and was also a member of Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts.

> She has written for The Fiscal Times, Fox News, the New York Sun, The Wall Street Journal, Alternate Universe, the Motley Fool, and Women on the Web and has appeared on Fox Business with Neil Cavuto and Fox & Friends. Peek contributes opinion pieces to The Hill.

> Their son, Andrew Peek, studied at Princeton, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the University of Texas at Austin, is a veteran of the US Army, and has worked for the Heritage Foundation and for two Republican US Senators and one Republican Congressman. He briefly served in each of the Trump administrations; as part of the State Department during Trump's first term, and as an advisor at the NSC during Trump's second term.

Just read her opinion pieces and you’ll experience her worldview firsthand, which I can only presume comes from a foolish sense of self-righteousness for making a career out of enabling and exacerbating the fossil fuel crisis. Don’t think she would be able to sleep at night if she actually gave a shit about even learning about the potential impacts of climate change.

And she’s a drop in the bucket - all of these people are like this.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Peek

[RetroTechie]

I'm thinking..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle

Often phrased as "science progresses one funeral at a time"

..applies here. Each time a Big Oil executive or one of their conspirators eats it, green tech progresses.

They worked to build today's fossil-dependent world. 20-somethings work to build a world that does without fossils (and imho they're doing ok there).

[datsci_est_2015]

Yeah, with the added factor that the US has large swaths of wealth that were accumulated from exploitation of the commons. In this case, natural resources with negative externalities tied to their extraction and consumption.

It creates a sense of entitlement, as well as enforces a certain type of world view that justifies their actions. How would you feel if your entire career was being invalidated by those who you consider intellectually and culturally inferior political enemies?

[fhdkweig]

Studying the ocean temperatures verifies that climate change is not a hoax. "He" is making money off fossil fuels. That is enough of a reason for being anti-science. This is the same guy that decided that the COVID numbers would go down if we just stopped measuring them. Burying his head in the sand is his go-to solution for all problems.

[Isamu]

I think this is part of an anti-climate change agenda, which is about protecting fossil fuel investments. Not sure that it is broadly anti-science, except maybe in the sense of being against public funding broadly.

[CamperBob2]

Once you start asking what Trump would do differently if he actually were an agent or captive of hostile foreign interests, the rest will begin to make more sense.

[quantified]

If you believe that our leadership is being influenced by actors such as Vladimir Putin, then you see that this is intended.

[naturalmovement]

There's a lot of collateral damage that could have been avoided if millions weren't being squandered on dubious "science" like studying grooming habits of trans aboriginals in the Central African Republic (a made-up scenario, but there are many like it).

At some point the baby's going to be thrown out with the bath water until the course is corrected.

[enragedcacti]

Seriously, when our tax dollars pay for idiots to play around with lizard spit[1] all day, why should we trust anything they want to fund?

[1] https://biomedical-sciences.uq.edu.au/article/2024/04/rise-o...

[pesus]

What's next, paying them to study worms??

https://www.wgal.com/article/new-world-screwworm-pennsylvani...

[triceratops]

Should've added an /s there

[Nevermark]

This link is much funnier if you don't give the punchline away. /s or /h or /ffs?

I am still trying to figure out how being against science, higher education, new energy, skilled South Korean workers, and for tariff-of-the-day lotteries, crypto grifts, Chinese-made "American-manufactured" phones, random wars and red hats is pro-manufacturing, pro-domestic investment and balancing the budget.

It's the "new math" of economics. I can't keep up.

[evan_]

Aren't you in any way concerned that you can't give a real example of the sort of thing you're talking about, and have to make one up? This should be the wake-up call that makes you re-evaluate your priors.

The reality is that reactionaries often describe "useless" scientific endeavors like "condoms for worms" that end up being the only thing stopping parasitic screwworms from infesting the US cattle herd, which will end up costing us hundreds of millions of dollars to resolve- and spike the already-high cost of beef for decades.

[bsdetector]

Anyone that wants to see real examples can turn on showdead in preferences.

[Itoldmyselfso]

There's nobody gatekeeping what can be studied and what can't. You claim millions are being wasted; by who? Is the goverment funding the studies you deem as wasted? If so you'd think that rather than making up a study you'd be able to give a single example. Should be very easy if millions are being wasted on these what I'd assume you'd call "bogus" studies.

[pesus]

Instead of getting upset about made up scenarios, why don't you find some real scenarios? Like the one this thread is discussing, for instance.

[preg_match]

A lot of this “dubious science” isn’t dubious at all. Rather, people just have a political view on it. Like climate change is considered dubious science by the right. It’s not, but that’s how they view it.

[Sabinus]

To me this argument sounds like, " the Dems funded too much trans science so you made us defund climate and social science and damage the rest"

Is that about right?

[RetroTechie]

Nice try to divert the discussion...

Could you explain what's wrong with monitoring the oceans surrounding the US? Take any angle (moral, scientific, public interest, economic p.o.v.)

Hint: in the greater scheme of things, science projects like this are ridiculously cheap.

[epistasis]

> a made-up scenario, but there are many like it)

There are many made-up scenarios, but not many real examples of what you are using to justify the weakening of the entire nation.

And the fact that you had to fabricate something is literally proof of it. Now, go find any supposed "waste" and you'll find that, again, the science has been completely misrepresented to the public by an anti-science media source that was focused on creating fake propaganda rather than properly informing the public.

Seriously. Prove me wrong, go find all this bath water that you claim exists, post it here!

[20after4]

I live in a red state. Our elected representatives are in on it.

[sulam]

Unfortunately as a resident of the SF Bay Area, calling my elected representative is next to useless. :/

[undersuit]

Blame 'The Reapportionment Act of 1929', the representatives capped their number and denied you adequate representation.

If you did call you may get a response from one of your representative's staff, the number which are granted is based on the population of your state.

[onemoresoop]

Do it anyway!

[triceratops]

That's what they want you to think.