“At the heart of scientific progress lies the pursuit of truth. But this foundational principle, which has driven every major breakthrough in our history, is increasingly under threat.”
This quote was found in a most unlikely place: one of the many White House executive orders issued in the chaotic days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Its appearance was surprising because the actions of this administration show that it is waging a war on information, on science, and on reason. This particular executive order recharters the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, or PCAST, a council that has advised numerous presidential administrations over the years. And in fact that executive order went on to point to “ideological dogmas” that “elevate group identity above individual achievement” as an impediment to scientific progress.
While it is unclear what role PCAST will have in the current administration, what is clear is that — contrary to the council’s stated mission — scientific truth is not one of the Trump White House’s core values. As a geneticist, educator, and daughter of immigrants working at the intersection of genetics and justice, I find the erasure of science and evidence underway almost inconceivable, both in terms of its scale and its capacity to harm.
For instance, the executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” seeks to assert what its authors characterize as the “immutable biological reality of sex,” contending that there are only two sexes. The order cloaks the hate embedded in this falsehood under the guise of protecting women’s “dignity, safety, and well-being” while ignoring the scientific evidence that sex exists on a continuum — that intersex people and people with variations in sex characteristics exist.
The order also contends that “women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” mistakenly equating sex with gender. Gender is innate to any individual’s sense of self, and it too exists on a continuum: A person can identify as a girl or woman, boy or man, a combination of the two, or neither, and these genders do not have universal alignment with specific physical traits or sexes assigned at birth.
Pseudoscientific claims are also the premise for the executive orders “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” which denies the existence of transgender youth and aims to eliminate their access to medically necessary, often lifesaving, care; and “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which blocks federal funding for educational institutions that allow transgender women to compete in girls’ and women’s athletic competitions. This ban harmfully describes trans women as men who unfairly seek to compete in women’s sports. There are few scientific studies addressing potential advantages, and initial sports-specific research has shown that having a body assigned male at birth may not confer an automatic athletic advantage to such women.
I find the erasure of science and evidence underway almost inconceivable, both in terms of its scale and its capacity to harm.
Then there is the administration’s obsession with diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, or DEIA. In the executive order “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” the unstated premise is that the civil rights of White, heterosexual, cis-gendered men are being violated by equal opportunity policies meant to reckon with our nation’s long-standing history of racism and other forms of bias. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 that this executive order seeks to undermine was written in the wake of the murder of Medgar Evers. Evers — a Black American, a World War II veteran, and a civil rights activist — was fighting to end segregation in public education and expand equal opportunities, including voting rights, to Black communities when he was assassinated at his home in Jackson, Mississippi. The law was written to protect Americans from discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin.
The law’s fundamental premise is that the barriers to opportunity for people from marginalized groups are not inherent to their abilities but rather reflect structural inequities in society. Indeed, focusing on race for a moment, science confirms that at the most fundamental genetic level, across racially defined populations, we are far more alike than we are different, and that genetic variation largely exists within populations, not between them. That is, there is no biological basis to assume one group may have more talent than another. Rather, talent is equally spread across populations while opportunity is not.
The recently confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., echoed Trump’s stance on sex and gender, and also doubled down on the erroneous belief that racial groups are biologically distinct when he indicated that Black people should be on a different vaccination schedule than White people due to inherent differences in their responses to vaccines. Carrying out research to understand different outcomes across population groups is an important way for us to understand health disparities. But attributing observed differences to a single characteristic such as race — a socio-political grouping with limited connection to physical appearance — is a harmful logical error. As a population grouping, race was created to reinforce hierarchical social structures and is a product of racism, not of biology. Statements like RFK Jr.’s have the capacity to cause significant harm by questioning the scientific rationale of vaccinating Black communities. Imagine a reality where Black Americans are more vulnerable to infection due to reduced vaccination rates and consider the potential for mass casualties in the community. These statements and the policies that grow from them have life and death consequences.
Science confirms that at the most fundamental genetic level, across racially defined populations, we are far more alike than we are different.
In an administration that thrives on the spread of disinformation, facts are dangerous weapons. Naturally, the next logical step was to scrub government websites of this very information, including National Institutes of Health websites describing the scientific dimensions of sex and gender, the contrasts between genetic ancestry and social constructions of race and ethnicity, and generally anything remotely to do with equity. Vast amounts of data were deleted from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention websites, which resulted in the loss of information related to transgender medicine, HIV surveillance, youth risk behavior, long Covid data, environmental justice, and immunization practices, among others.
These data sets were an essential resource for public health researchers seeking to understand the root causes of health inequities. To have these data disappear without warning has not only hamstrung ongoing and future research efforts, but it has also jeopardized the health and well-being of numerous communities. Although some of the data has since been restored after a judicial temporary restraining order, it is unclear how much remains missing, whether the information has been altered, and how long it will remain accessible. It is not hyperbole to compare this erasure campaign to the book burnings that autocratic regimes like Nazi Germany used to censor and to stifle opposition.
Restricting or misrepresenting studies that identify the social determinants of health — non-biological factors that influence health outcomes — allows bad actors to claim that inequity is the result of inherent biological differences rather than the consequence of structural inequities that disproportionately impact minoritized communities.
All of this matters — scientific truth itself matters — because as the administration imposes these executive orders built on pseudoscience, they create an alternate reality where marginalized and vulnerable communities are disenfranchised because of their own inherent inferiority. This narrative is toxic in that it justifies policies designed to further exacerbate inequity because, after all, if populations are inferior, then why bother trying to create policy to uplift them?
To use the administration’s own words, “These agendas have not only distorted truth but have eroded public trust, undermined the integrity of research, stifled innovation, and weakened America’s competitive edge.” This White House is attacking the legitimacy of science itself.
Shoumita Dasgupta, Ph.D., is a scientist educator, professor of medicine, and Assistant Dean of Diversity & Inclusion at Boston University. Dasgupta is the author of “Where Biology Ends and Bias Begins: Lessons on Belonging from Our DNA.”