American brain drain

We live in a perilous moment of history. The dangers facing humanity have never been more catastrophic. At the same time, our power to solve them has never been greater. But will we use that power wisely? Or will we cripple ourselves in the name of ignorance and political dogma?

While wars, plagues and natural disasters have always threatened civilization, the 20th century was the first time that humanity had the power to wipe itself out completely. First with the prospect of thermonuclear war, and now with the emerging global catastrophe of climate change, we're dangerously close to destroying the planet we live on.

But there's cause for optimism, as well. By some estimates, 90% of all the scientists who've ever lived are alive right now. Our knowledge base is broader and our technology more capable than ever, and that progress is only accelerating.

This rapidly growing power opens up avenues that were previously off-limits. We should be living in a golden age of scientific solutions to once-unsolvable problems. And, arguably, we are.

A golden age?

Take the COVID-19 pandemic. Faced with a deadly and highly contagious new disease spreading worldwide, we responded with unprecedented speed, turning the previously-theoretical technology of mRNA vaccines into reality in a matter of months.

The COVID vaccines were a massive scientific victory. For all the anti-vax hysteria and conspiracizing, they saved tens of millions of lives around the world. They shielded countless millions more from hospitalization and permanent disability.

We're making strides in other areas of biology as well. CRISPR has unleashed the ability to rewrite our genes on demand, a power we're already using to cure once-intractable genetic diseases.

Clean, renewable energy is displacing dirty fossil fuels. AI is discovering new antibiotics and performing other tasks that used to be the sole province of human minds. Very soon (depending on your opinion about the maturity of the technology), self-driving cars may be a commonplace reality. A little further out, we may have access to robots that can do household chores and jobs.

But this rising tide isn't lifting all boats equally. Against a global backdrop of accelerating progress, some nations are nurturing science and technology and are poised to prosper. Others are rejecting it, and as a consequence, they're falling further and further behind.

One of the nations in the latter category is the United States.

Long-lasting damage

Whatever may happen in the future, the second Trump administration has done massive, long-lasting damage to the cause of science and technology in America. The federal government was once an ally to scientific research, but Trump and his cronies have turned it into an enemy.

They've turned anti-science wreckers loose at once-respectable institutions like the CDC, demolishing decades of evidence-based policy and rewriting scientific guidelines on a whim. They put a drug-addled sociopathic billionaire in charge of the federal workforce, firing thousands of workers according to his erratic whims. They've decimated budgets for basic research to give tax cuts to the rich and withheld federal grants to punish universities that don't toe the line.

READ: The coming dark age of stupidity

Last but certainly not least, Trump and his thuggish ICE stormtroopers are harassing and persecuting immigrants, and that includes immigrant scientists. Faced with the prospect of brutal arrests, violence and arbitrary detention, legal residents are making the rational choice to depart the country for safer harbors elsewhere.

The consequences of this chaos are as predictable as they're depressing. The U.S. government, once a reliable source of nonpartisan expertise, is hemorrhaging its most educated and qualified advisors:

Some 10,109 doctoral-trained experts in science and related fields left their jobs last year as President Donald Trump dramatically shrank the overall federal workforce. That exodus was only 3% of the 335,192 federal workers who exited last year but represents 14% of the total number of Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) or health fields employed at the end of 2024...

As the article notes, relatively few of these experts were fired outright. Many more chose to quit, whether in protest or to get out ahead of what they saw as inevitable layoffs. Others had their positions eliminated due to budget cuts:

At NSF, 45% of the 204 STEM Ph.D.s who left last year were rotators—academics on leave from their university to work for a few years at the agency. Last year, NSF eliminated three-quarters of those positions.

The political atmosphere in America has become so toxic and hostile, a supermajority of scientific researchers are looking to move elsewhere, according to a poll conducted by the journal Nature:

The scientific journal Nature poll found that 75.3 percent of scientists are considering leaving the U.S. after the administration cut funding for research.

Safe havens for science

If scientists are leaving the U.S., where are they going?

One answer, which may be uncomfortable for those with lingering feelings of patriotism, is China. Prestigious scientists and academics of Chinese descent, including professors from Ivy League universities, are increasingly judging that China is a safer and more welcoming place for their research.

Canada and the European Union aren't standing by, either. Both are offering grants and other incentives to attract American scientists:

In response to these recent developments, schools in France, including the prestigious CentraleSupélec, have established funds to support American scientists. The engineering school announced last week that it has allocated 3 million euros (around $3.2 million) to finance research projects that can no longer continue in the U.S.

...Other countries are also actively seeking to attract American scientists. For instance, the Netherlands is also launching a fund to support American scientists as well as those from other countries.

The irony, of course, is that the U.S. is the place that used to be the safe haven for science.

When the Nazis were sweeping across Europe and persecuting scientists and intellectuals whom they disdained as inferior races, those who escaped found welcome and sanctuary in the United States. When Soviet scientists wanted to escape the suffocating opppression of the Iron Curtain, they defected to the West. When scientists from developing nations became refugees from instability, corruption and civil war, they too came here.

For decades, America was a place of refuge. It was a wealthy and stable society where people could think and speak freely, where they could carry out their research without worrying that it'd offend the ideology of those in power.

We benefited immensely from this reputation, which helped attract the best and brightest from all around the world. It's very plausible that it's the source of our current prosperity. How many of our inventions and patents, our top-caliber universities, our successful businesses can we attribute to our welcome of immigrants and our enthusiastic support for science?

Now the current has been reversed, and the flow of brainpower is going the other way. As America turns on itself, those who have the means and the prospects will seek a warmer welcome in other places.

As a society, we'll be intellectually and materially impoverished. Without the benefit of scientific counsel, ignorance will thrive. Natural disasters will catch us off guard, preventable disease will run rampant, climate change will swamp the coasts and parch farmlands, and high-paying jobs will shift offshore. Even if the next presidential administration is friendlier to science, the damage will linger for generations.

This doesn't mean that scientific progress will cease. It just means that America won't be the nerve center of it anymore. Rather than the ones making (and profiting from) the breakthroughs, we'll be the ones buying and importing them from elsewhere. It's a disgraceful fate for a country that could once claim to be a world leader in science and technology, and an object lesson in the dangers of elevating ignorance over knowledge.