Call It Scienticide, Brain Drain, Or Anti-Intellectualism — The US Is Losing Its Futurists

What happens when thousands of US scientists lose their jobs or grants? With massive cuts for most agencies, US scientists need to look at every option. Their careers are on the line as the scienticide swirls around them. If the first months of the Trump administration are any indication, the idea of relocation may be necessary for scientists as the year evolves. Not able to wait, postdocs and graduate students in the US have been applying for jobs abroad in record numbers.

The Trump administration has dismissed essential scientific research staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. The by-product of this scienticide transcends the current era and has potentially dire consequences for the future stability of the US.

That’s because research scientists are futurists. Futurism looks ahead to ways that change, innovation, and progress create a better world. It is based on ideas — often disruptive, unconventional, norm-breaking ways of thinking — that anticipate and influence the future.

“Ideas, and the technologies and companies and products they power, draw the outer borders of growth,” Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson write in Abundance. Both political parties in the US, they say, fail to offer “a clearly articulated vision of the future and how it differs from the present.”

Many would respond that the answer is in scientific research, which is about the world of tomorrow.

Instead, though, the Trump administration prides itself on a false mythology in which fossil fuels underpin stability and drive a “civilized” society. The MAGA/ Project 2025 ideology is a revisionist yearning for an elite time in which white middle class folks owned a home, had regular meals, bought a car, and traveled together on yearly vacations. There was no connection or concern with black people, gay people, or non-European immigrants during this time, of course — which is the point of Trump’s stomp on science. Advancements for all deprive the most wealthy of their toys.

Readying for the future has been a focal point of many previous US administrations. Starting in the FDR era, federal money enabled scientific discoveries that thrust the US into the pinnacle of research and innovation, eventually setting the standard for the fields of technology and biotechnology.

It was a relationship in which federal officials funded projects and lent oversight. Institutions, often housed in state and private universities, plunged ahead into the mysteries of science and technology, while training new generations of researchers. You will recognize some of the innovations that emerged: radar, Google, close captioning, MRI testing, barcodes, smartphones, GPS, the Internet, and self-driving vehicles.

The US has been the world’s leading funder of R&D — including government, university, and private investment — for decades. In 2024, the United States spent nearly $1 trillion — roughly 3.5% of total economic output — on research and development. When it came to the kind of long-term, basic research that grounded US technological and scientific advancements, the government accounted for about 40% of the spending then.

That’s no longer the case. US research institutions are suffocating as the Trump administration redirects money to its pet projects like racism immigration reform.

Scienticide Means a Different Kind of Future

Because the National Science Foundation is awarding new grants at the slowest pace in at least 35 years, Bhatia, Cabreros, Elkeurti, and Singer relate in the New York Times that “virtually every area of science” will be affected by the Trump administration funding cuts. “That means less support for early-stage research that underpins future technological advancements — and American competitiveness — in areas like computer science and engineering; physics and chemistry; climate science and weather forecasting; and, materials and manufacturing innovations,” they conclude.

That means scientific research is losing out big time. Deemphasized are investments in data-driven decision making, automation, digital transformation, a culture of innovation, or talent acquisition and retention. The Trump administration cuts are so broad that they’re even touching upon areas of interest that the MAGA group holds dear.

A British-American virologist and professor of retrovirology at the Rockefeller University wrote in the Guardian how scienticide will have lasting effects on the US. Because science generates foundational knowledge that enables technology, medicine, and an understanding of how the world works, Paul Darren Bieniasz explained, its application benefits humanity and underpins American innovation and exceptionalism.

“If we continue the destructive course plotted by this administration, medicines that would otherwise have saved lives in future generations, will not be invented. Technologies that would have ensured future employment and prosperity in the US will not be devised. Solutions that allow the generation of power while causing less damage to the environment, will never be developed. Clearly, if we decline to nurture science, the lives of future Americans will be shorter, sicker and poorer. Science may not be the only thing that makes the US great, but it is surely a cornerstone of American exceptionalism, and it is being destroyed by this government.”

It’s important to remember that the vast majority of fundamental scientific research in the US is funded by US taxpayers — not sponsored by particular private companies. Federal research until now has been non-ideological.

No Research Funding in the US? Come and Work in our Country Instead

Academic freedom in the US used to mean that researchers and educators could study and work without political interference or threats to their livelihood. Academic freedom is the distillation of innovation — it’s the power that fuels the pursuit of knowledge and progress. Now, however, as the Trump administration decimates research and innovation in the US, governments and universities around the world have jumped in to fill the vacuum created by the scienticide.

Previously, competition drove recruitment, but now it’s the loss of academic freedom in the US that is fueling interest from abroad, as reported by Larson, Ramakrishnan, and Keaten of AP.

• The “Canada Leads” program wants to kick-start the next generation of innovators by bringing early-career biomedical researchers north of the border.
• Aix-Marseille University in France is welcoming US-based scientists who “may feel threatened or hindered in their research” with their new “Safe Place for Science” program.
• Australia’s “Global Talent Attraction Program” has pledged competitive salaries and relocation packages for US researchers.
• At the Max Planck Society in Germany, the Lise Meitner Excellence Program — aimed at young female researchers — drew triple the number of applications from US-based scientists this year as last year.

Last week the European Union announced it would spend an additional 500 million euros, or $556 million, over the next two years to “make Europe a magnet for researchers.” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, argued that a mindset where “fundamental, free and open research is questioned” will have many consequences and is “a gigantic miscalculation!” She didn’t name Trump, but the implication was obvious.

The futurists understand the point. Scienticide has to stop. Without innovation that is derived from research and its corollary, funding, the US will not only fall behind other countries in its technological wherewithal but will also fail to provide a zero emissions, stable, healthy life its citizens deserve.