Two hundreds of one of the best scientists on the earth denounce “the real danger” of Trump: “The scientific system is being destroyed” | Science | EUROtoday

More than 1,900 members of the American scientific academies – the world elite of their disciplines – have signed an open letter during which they denounce the “real danger” concerned in “the systematic attack against science” headed by the brand new president of the United States, Donald Trump. The textual content may be very onerous. “We have diverse political beliefs, but we are united as researchers in the defense of the independence of scientific research. We send this as a clear warning: the country’s scientific system is being destroyed,” they warn. The letter is addressed “to the American people”, however the mess brought on by Trump may have penalties within the life expectancy of all humanity. The United States places one in 4 euros devoted on the earth to science and know-how.

“The administration is imposing censorship, destroying our independence. It is using executive orders and financial threats to manipulate which studies are financed or publish, how the results are communicated and what data can be accessible to the population. The administration is blocking research on topics that it considers questionable, such as climate change, or whose results do not like, in issues that range from the safety of vaccines to the economy,”

Among the just about two thousand signers are figures from the within and outdoors the United States, such because the French virologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, winner of the 2008 Medicine Nobel Prize for locating the AIDS virus; The German astrophysician Reinhard Genzel, nobel of physics for detecting the black gap within the heart of our galaxy; the American virologist Harvey J. Alter, deserving of the 2020 Medicine Nobel noise by the invention of the hepatitis C virus; and the Spanish biochemist Joan Massagué, director of the scientific arm of the MEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING ONCOLOGICAL CENTER, in New York.

The authors of the letter argue that the American scientific system is “the envy of the world”, after virtually a century of “wise investments” of the United States authorities. “Incredibly, the Trump Administration is destabilizing this system by drastically cutting the financing, dismissing thousands of scientists, restricting public access to the data and pressing researchers to alter or abandon their work for ideological reasons,” the signatories warn.

The letter doesn’t cite on to the richest man on the earth, Elon Musk, however he laments the brutal scissors executed from the Government Efficiency Department directed by the tycoon. “These cuts are forcing institutions to interrupt research (including studies on new disease treatments), say goodbye to teachers and stop admitting to postgraduate students, which puts the training of the next generation of scientists at risk,” says the authors of the Charter.

Among the signatories embrace at the very least two different prestigious Spanish scientists: the geneticist Ginés Morata and the virologist Esteban Domingo, members of the National Academy of American Sciences. “The scientific development of the whole world can suffer a lot. This is an assault of the unreasonable world [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]it is as if I did not believe in the Law of Universal Gravitation, ”says Morata, a researcher who has illuminated the embryonic growth of all animals from his laboratory on the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Center (CSIC), in Madrid.

His colleague Esteban Domingo can be very crucial of Trump. “Science in the United States has been very important to take the country where it is. The cuts are forcing scientists to break projects already emigrate. This is an incredible breakdown with respect to the past of the United States. I find it hard to understand that they are accepting this. The country was an example that is spoiling for a person,” he argues.

The two thousand and signatories denounce the “climate of fear” that has taken over the scientific neighborhood within the United States. “There are researchers, fearful of losing their financing or job stability, who are eliminating their names from their publications, abandoning studies and rewriting subsidy requests and articles to omit scientifically precise terms, such as climate change, that financing agencies have begun to point out as problematic,” they warn.

“The damage to the scientific system of our country could take decades to revert. We call on the administration to stop its systematic attack on science in the United States, and we urged the public to join this call,” concludes the signatories. “The voice of science should not be silenced. We all benefit from science, and we will all lose if the country’s scientific system is destroyed.”