This is by no means an exhaustive list of the scientific malfeasance propped up by federal funding but it does include the most egregious offenses. In prior articles, I have parsed out the flaws in this research and shown that these researchers are more than just sloppy. They are dishonest. It is time to bring these corrupt players to heel. Many among us would like to see them publicly crucified, but I believe that curtailing their funding is the best approach in seeking justice. The threat of cuts to funding is already having the effect of sapping the spirit of these fraudsters. Their despair and desperation are displayed in an article written in the Atlantic this week.

The article’s author whines that “the Trump administration is now undertaking—a deliberate destruction of education, science, and history, conducted with a fanaticism that recalls the Dark Ages that followed Rome’s fall.” He goes on to say,

The administration is threatening colleges and universities with the loss of federal funding if they do not submit to its demands, or even if they do. The engines of American scientific inquiry and ingenuity, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, are under sustained attack. Historical institutions such as the Smithsonian and artistic ones like the Kennedy Center are being converted into homes for MAGA ideology rather than historical fact and free expression. Libraries are losing funding, government-employed scientists are being dismissed from their jobs, educators are being cowed into silence, and researchers are being warned not to broach forbidden subjects.

I do give the author points for rhetorical flourish, but other than that it’s just the plea of someone running scared. He is afraid that the clerisy class that he is part of will lose its influence and money. What does that say about him and cohorts in the deep state that they need a constant source of sustenance to keep their religious fervor going? Like their bygone counterparts in the first estate of the ancien régime, they have gotten used to a pampered existence and dread imagining what life would be like as one of the masses.

The author got one thing right — the Trump agenda is a threat to his class. He states the following:

The money these institutions have lost (or could still lose) is not merely symbolic. Federal grants fund research, scholarship, and archival work on college campuses. Without this money—unless schools raise the funds from other sources—labs and departments will close. The right-wing activist Chris Rufo recently told The New York Times that in addition to using funding to force universities to teach or adhere to conservative dogma, he would like to ‘reduce the size of the sector itself.’ 

The size of the sector should shrink. Society does not need these parasites in positions of power and privilege, preaching climate catastrophe, racial disharmony, COVID masking and transgenderism. Turn them out and make them useful as an Uber driver or something.

Image from Grok.