The statue of liberty in a worn down laboratory wearing a torn lab coat.
28. January 2025

A Matter Of Gravity – science in free fall 

The urge to understand the world has captivated me since I was a kid. I’d get lost in stories about hidden wonders—faraway stars, distant planets, and long-extinct dinosaurs. Honestly, it was freaking cool. To me, scientists were superheroes—always exploring, adventuring, curing diseases, and saving the planet.

Unsurprisingly, I found my way to biology, even after a brief detour into law school. But in the grind of daily life, it’s easy to forget why I started this journey in the first place. Failed experiments, endless meetings, and a broken coffee machine now and then are all a far cry from the thrill of discovery. I sometimes lose sight of what an honor—and a privilege—it is to be able to study and research freely.

Science is extraordinary because it encompasses such an unbelievably vast spectrum — humanities, arts, engineering, economics, social sciences, mathematics, and natural sciences — and I want to stress that every single one of them matters. Together, they help us achieve something truly inspiring: Making the complexity of existence tangible. Through science, we can glimpse the thoughts and visions of those who came before us, explore eras and cultures through their art and literature, and uncover nature’s hidden rhythms, translating them into technologies that power our world.

 Granted: Statistics, equations, and dense reports can feel detached from daily life—let’s admit it, they can be boring. But they are, in many ways, equivalent to our five senses: Giving us input from which our “brains”, or rather our bright minds and scientists, can draw conclusions and derive a deeper meaning. To be part of this collective endeavor is an honor. It’s a superpower with a great responsibility. And yet, looking across the Atlantic today, that ideal is now under attack.

The freedom and independence of the global scientific community are under siege. Within days of taking office, the second Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement (Trump signs executive order directing US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement — again) and opened protected natural reserves for fossil fuel extraction (Trump says he will unleash American fossil fuels, halt climate cooperation | Reuters). At NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), employees have been instructed to denounce their colleagues and report hires made under diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) mandates (BSKY Post of Laura Lopez).

Meanwhile, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading vaccine skeptic, will lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which has already indefinitely frozen external communications from critical agencies like the CDC (Centre of Disease Control), FDA (Food and Drug Administration), and NIH (National Institute of Health). 

This isn’t a minor inconvenience. These communication channels are essential for warning the public about disease outbreaks, especially now with the H5N1 (bird flu) situation being on the brink, maintaining and furthering international collaboration, and managing 47 billion USD in research funding that sustains over 3,000 institutions and 300,000 scientists (‘Never seen anything like this’: Trump’s team halts NIH meetings and travel). Shortly after also the NSF (National Science Foundation), which supports at least a quarter of U.S. basic research financially, has also halted grant review and distribution following yet another executive order (National Science Foundation freezes grant review in response to Trump executive orders : Shots – Health News : NPR). The freeze of funding and the dismantling of these systems won’t just pause progress; it could set research projects and scientific careers back by years if not completely ruin them.

And it’s not just about money. Science thrives on diversity—the variety of ideas and perspectives that come from people of different ethnicities, abilities, and identities working together. But how many of these scientists will be lost in the wake of the crackdown on DEI initiatives? How many groundbreaking ideas will never be thought of? How many transformative projects will never begin? 

Organizations with significant standing in the global community – the CDC has pioneered HIV/AIDS prevention strategies, led the eradication of smallpox and polio, and contained the spread and coordinated response towards H1N1 (2009), ebola, or COVID-19. The NIH acts as the largest biomedical funding organization globally, housing 170 Nobel laureates with internationally relevant achievements like MRI machines, CT scans, genome editing, HIV/AIDS treatment, and the development of the HPV, hepatitis B, and mRNA vaccines. Whatever is happening to these organizations is not just contained to the United States.

JD Vance has, without a doubt, unveiled the intent of Trump’s regime by citing Richard Nixon: “Professors are the enemies” (J.D. Vance | The Universities are the Enemy | National Conservatism Conference). 

By painting the intellectuals around the world—and in the U.S., specifically—as the enemy, Trump’s administration has ushered in a novel phase in the war on facts and scholarship that has been brewing for the last decade.

Scientific consensus is being ignored, regulatory bodies are being dismantled, and publicly funded researchers are endangered. Meanwhile, CEOs of tech giants—companies that owe much of their success to publicly funded research in AI, space travel, and engineering—sit comfortably behind President Trump at his inauguration. The richest one of them is his advisor Elon Musk, who has already bogarted Twitter and attacked Wikipedia. Meanwhile, other AI companies have received the green light to start a state-driven billion-heavy AI project (Trump shrugs off Elon Musk’s criticism of AI announcement: ‘He hates one of the people’ | CNN Business). Seemingly operating under the motto “Science for me, but not for thee”, the new U.S. administration appears to be willing to fund scientific research only to those who are loyal to the values and tenets of Trump’s followers, whether or not they be based on evidence. 

What’s happening in the U.S. is about more than just science itself; it’s a challenge to the relationship between science, technology, and democracy. It raises critical questions about who is allowed the generation, analysis, and distribution of knowledge—seemingly placing it under the sway of partisan interests. 

Science, however, is neither partisan nor biased—if it is practiced correctly. Across its many disciplines, science confronts the complexity of our existence, often in uncomfortable ways. It reveals inconvenient truths—such as the catastrophic loss of biodiversity driven by unsustainable land use, the dangers of human-made carbon emissions pushing temperatures into uninhabitable ranges, and the proliferation of microplastic pollution. We rely on independent science to monitor our world—how else can we navigate the dangers we face? Who else could warn us? Beyond environmental concerns, science offers crucial insights into the rise of extremism, the stability of political systems, and strategies to alleviate poverty. When we seek answers, who do we turn? To political and social scientists!

This makes science a threatening force to anyone striving to monopolize power and truth. History is filled with examples of this tension: the Church’s persecution of Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin, the misuse of science to justify the Third Reich’s eugenics, Nazi legal doctrines, and the Soviet Union’s pseudoscience theory of Lysenkoism. Authoritarian systems have always tolerated science only when it serves their agendas—otherwise silencing, persecuting, or imprisoning dissenting voices. If we still want to base our lives and reality on objective facts and universal truths, the freedom and independence of science need to be defended and secured over and over again. 

This notion is not just apparent in the U.S. – Victor Orbán and the Fidesz party have dismantled scientific freedom in Hungary by privatizing universities and managing hires by government panels (Right-wing Populism and Freedom of Science in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary | SpringerLink). In Poland, the PiS party has removed disciplines of science and removed democratic organs regulating it during their rule (Intellectual Freedom and Its New Enemies by Andrea Pető – Project Syndicate). In Austria, the FPÖ also clearly lays out in their election program what, to them, constitutes unacceptable science – vaccines, genetic engineering, and in-vitro meat (Zwischen Innovation und Populismus: Die Wissenschaftspläne von ÖVP und FPÖ | Wiener Zeitung). And right here in Germany, where I live, study, and work, the AfD has strongly supported COVID skepticism, climate denial, and calls to establish German as the language of academia while advocating for the removal of gender studies (German ‘should remain language of academia’, demands AfD | Times Higher Education (THE), Debatte über AfD-Forderung für ein Ende der Gender-Forschung). Just for the record, gender studies primarily involve the social and cultural analysis of gender, including the investigation of gender-related injustices in healthcare, the workplace, and technology. This clarification may seem unnecessary, as their rhetoric appears too fragile to withstand exposure to gender-neutral language or discussions about influences on gender beyond biological sex.

In other words, citizens and scientists of Europe: Keep your politicians accountable to secure free, independent research systems!

I am not just a biologist or an early career scientist – but also a founding member of the Eco-Progressive Network. I believe that with the future challenges we face, we will depend greatly on the work of a myriad of diverse scientists from all disciplines in monitoring our world, providing us with data and technological tools to steer our path to a greener, fairer, and livable future for all. 

We see how technological enterprises have gone hand in hand with the authoritarian policy of the Trump administration, even solidifying and supporting his resurgence to the presidency through their power over capital, algorithms, and data. Regulatory affairs are hindrances in advancing their products and capital interest – plainly seen in the speed with which AI-limiting regulations were broken (Trump revokes Biden executive order on addressing AI risks | Reuters).  

But pure techno-optimism will not help us implement a more livable future – it’s not enough to have better technologies and more data. It’s not a self-fulfilling cause. If technological progress becomes the cause of politics – democracy becomes the hindrance. 

We need regulation to secure the safe use of technology in a sustainable way, limit the power of companies in mandating the use of their technologies and services, be it AI or Biotechnology – and give our societies an option to decide how we want to use them and discuss what society we want to strive for.

Here the EU must take the lead in charting a different course—one where transparency, equity, and accountability guide how we integrate technology into society. The EU can promote open research access, fund projects prioritizing sustainability and social equity, establish strict ethical frameworks for emerging technologies – and keep science free, independent, and transparent! 

If we embrace these principles, the EU can become a global role model, proving that innovation, democracy, and environmental responsibility are not just compatible but inseparable. The world is watching, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. As Joe Biden said in his final speech in office, it’s our turn to be the “keepers of the flame,” which might just be the Bunsen burner of a public lab.

Christian-Frederic Kaiser
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