Ten thousand voices for science

Stand Up for Science has provided a portal where members of the public can comment on the Office of Management and Budget’s new Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance, and you should do it. The goal is ten thousand independent comments from separate individuals before the period ends on July 13.

The new regulations, if passed, would require funded research to adhere to the current administration’s political agenda and would profoundly limit American scientists’ ability to collaborate research teams in other countries. I always thought of the scientific community as a transnational, human accomplishment.

I could talk about the specifics—it’s anti-DEI, anti-trans, claims PEPFAR was corrupt and promoted gender ideology (it saved people from AIDS)—but the core of it is that researchers would be required to choose a political conclusion first and then try to build their experiments around it rather than testing hypotheses and then acknowledging their findings.

Remember, when one administration takes power, the next administration almost never gives it up. When I first heard of the OMB’s new rules, I must have spent twenty minutes clicking around the federal site before I found exactly where to lodge my opinion, and Stand Up for Science has simplified the process a lot. But if you don’t want to go through them, click on my second link above and tell the American government what to do directly.