Steven Cohen, professor, doesn’t hold back on Trump’s research cuts: “The attack on science is multifaceted”

Science and innovation have been a driving force behind the growth of the United States’ economy. They have helped increase productivity and transformed the economy from one primarily based in agriculture, to manufacturing, and now services.

However, with the return of Donald Trump to the White House, American science is facing a perilous moment according to prominent figures in the field like Steven Cohen, a professor at Columbia University and senior vice dean of the School of Professional Studies. In a recent article he wrote, “the attack on science is multifaceted and a result of a bias against expertise and a profound misunderstanding about the foundations of economic wealth in the modern global economy.”

Trump’s multifaceted attack on science

“We live in a brain-based economy where innovation and newly invented products are the center of economic strength,” the academic points out. “New inventions continue to transform the way we live and our standard of living.”

Cohen laments that “scientific illiterates” in the Trump administration are dismantling the nation’s scientific enterprise. This has been carried out through “a series of attacks on scientists and their laboratories, implemented through funding cuts, grant interruptions, and immigration restrictions,” he says.

This has resulted in a brain drain, with scientists flocking to Canada, China, and Europe, the latter has set up a fund to specifically woo disgruntled U.S.-based scientists. The White House’s policies have also led to interruptions in long-term research projects, resulting in the data collected and money already spent going to waste.

Cohen also lambasted the dismantling of multimillion-dollar systems already in place like the plans to remove the over 900 deep water sensors in the Ocean Observatories Initiative. It was built at a cost of $386 million and began full operation in 2016. The network is supposed to operate for another 15 years until roughly 2041.

Cohen criticized Trump’s mindset that is “locked into the 1980s,” and “believes that manufacturing, particularly heavy manufacturing like steel, is the heart of our economy.” The porfessor uses the example of Apple, to show that wealth in the 21^st century comes from software, not hardware.

“Apple builds hardware, which makes small profits to addict customers to software, where the profits are massive,” he points out. “If America is being taken advantage of by so many other nations, why do we remain the richest nation in the world?”

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