We're Paying $1 Billion to Fall Behind

Every country makes mistakes. What’s harder to accept is when a country makes them on purpose—or at least knowingly. The United States is currently doing both, making choices that point not sideways, not slower, but backward in ways that could take a generation to undo.

The federal government recently agreed to pay roughly $1 billion to TotalEnergies to abandon offshore wind projects in U.S. waters. Those projects were expected to power more than a million homes. Instead, that capital is being redirected into dirtier, less sustainable oil and gas development. This is not deregulation. It is a deliberate, taxpayer-funded intervention to halt one form of domestic energy production in favor of another.

That alone should give pause. But it's part of a pattern—across energy, science, public health, civil rights, and institutional governance—that suggests the country is pulling away from the very foundations that built its strength. And not by accident.

Science and Research

Energy decisions make headlines. Science policy rarely does. But the consequences of underfunding it outlast any news cycle.

For decades, American leadership has been built on sustained investment in research through institutions like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, investments that produced the breakthroughs defining modern life, from cancer therapies to semiconductors. Recent funding constraints and disruptions are already affecting research pipelines. Universities are scaling back. Grants are stalled. Researchers are reconsidering where to build their careers.

This isn't theoretical. It's arithmetic: slow the investment, slow the innovation, lose the ground. China has spent years building out its research capacity. The EU keeps deepening collaborative funding. The U.S. doesn't need to outspend them. But walking away from the table is a different thing entirely.

Public Health

The costs in public health are the most immediate. The United States spent decades creating a system capable of responding to outbreaks, developing vaccines, and protecting population health. It took a long time to build. It’s taking a far shorter amount of time to break.

Recent shifts in vaccine policy and public health messaging are accelerating that erosion. Growing political interference in agencies like HHS, combined with amplified skepticism toward vaccines despite overwhelming scientific consensus, is undermining the institutional confidence that makes public health systems work. Vaccines are one of the most effective tools medicine has ever produced, and the trust behind them took generations to earn.

Eroding confidence in that system doesn't create freedom. It creates a specific kind of vulnerability—the kind that shows up as outbreaks, as misinformation taking hold, as people dying from diseases we know how to prevent. And once that trust is gone, it doesn't come back easily.

Environmental Policy

Not every regulation is worth keeping. Some rules are outdated, some are redundant, and a serious case can be made for trimming them. But that's a different argument from what's actually happening.

Efforts to weaken water protections, emissions standards, and pollutant tracking may reduce compliance costs in the short term. But many of these protections were established after costly failures: industrial contamination, unsafe air, widespread health consequences. Rolling them back doesn't eliminate risk. It shifts it onto communities and future taxpayers. When guardrails are removed, the consequences tend to arrive later and cost more.

Voting Rights and the Press

A country's strength depends on whether people trust the system that governs them. The proposed SAVE Act would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. Noncitizen voting is already exceedingly rare, yet millions of eligible Americans lack ready access to such documentation—rural voters, lower-income individuals, many married women whose legal names differ from their birth certificates. When barriers rise, access falls. Policies that reverse the trajectory toward broader participation reshape who governs and who does not.

The same pressure is bearing down on the press. The First Amendment isn't an abstraction—it's the mechanism by which power gets scrutinized, challenged, and held to account. When the government threatens broadcast licenses, targets specific media organizations through regulatory pressure, and repeatedly labels journalists as enemies of the state, the effect is a press that pulls its punches. A country without independent journalism doesn't become more stable. It becomes less informed, and more easily misled.

The Pattern

Each of these areas can be debated individually. But taken together, they point in the same direction: away from investment in the future, away from scientific expertise, away from broad democratic participation, and away from the independent institutions that hold power accountable. That is not a neutral shift. It is a deliberate one.

And because these systems are connected, the damage doesn’t stay in one place. Weaker research means slower medical breakthroughs and fewer competitive industries. A less trusted public health system means a less healthy, less productive workforce. And when people stop trusting institutions, the effects are harder to trace but impossible to ignore.

It's tempting to view these developments as inevitable, as if they're simply the product of forces too large to name or change. They're not. They are the result of decisions made by elected officials, supported by voters, and enabled by disengagement.

Many Americans supporting these policies are doing so in good faith, responding to legitimate concerns about economic security and eroding trust in government. But good intentions don't guarantee good outcomes. In practice, these policies often work against the very interests they claim to serve—gutting research slows the medical breakthroughs that save lives, weakening public health infrastructure puts families at greater risk, and turning away from future industries shrinks the economy those families depend on.

This isn’t really about left or right. It’s about whether the choices being made actually serve the people they’re supposed to serve.

The United States is not in irreversible decline. It remains one of the most dynamic and capable countries in the world. But direction matters.

Spending $1 billion to shut down offshore wind development is not the defining policy of this era. But it’s a clear signal of what the priorities are—and those priorities reach well beyond energy. Countries don’t usually fall behind all at once. They do it gradually, through decisions that each seem defensible on their own but add up to something much harder to reverse.

That process can be reversed. But it won't reverse itself. It takes attention and engagement—and if left unaddressed, it can last for a generation.

What Pfizer’s Super Bowl Ad Should Have Been

There’s been a lot of discussion around Pfizer’s decision to spend an estimated $14–21 million on its “Here’s to Science” Super Bowl ad. I’d like to boil it down to two questions: Why did they do it? Did it accomplish their objective?

For the question of ‘why,’ STAT News reported, “The ad comes as the pharmaceutical company celebrates its 175th anniversary and looks to promote a dynamic, optimistic message about Pfizer’s future to the general public, investors, and the company’s own employees.”

Pfizer spokesperson Faith Salamon said the goal was to “celebrate science in a fun, engaging and uplifting way.”

Unfortunately, The New York Times didn’t buy it. In their review of Super Bowl ads, the NYT placed Pfizer in the category entitled, “The Flagrant Missteps: Famous people and millions of dollars that together can’t quite amount to mediocrity.”

Flagrant sounds too intentional. This is a case of missed opportunity (except for the soundtrack — who doesn’t love Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”?).

I had an array of reactions, but these were the key moments:

Most horrifying: A corpse comes alive, with his arm dissected from shoulder to fingertips — depicted in Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp — looking like he wants to get off the table.

Most confusing: The inclusion of a tartigrade (“little water bear,” an eight-legged creature about one millimeter long) swimming across the screen.

Most inspiring: The positive message sent by highlighting four women scientists, one of color.

Most overreaching: It seems the ad makers knew most of the public couldn’t differentiate between famous scientists or science disciplines, so they threw some recognizable names out there. The relevance was questionable since half of the science luminaries depicted were mathematicians and physicists, yet Pfizer is a healthcare company.

Most jarring: The words “Here’s to the next fight” come across the screen but don’t connect to anything seen previously. The next words are “LetsOutdoCancer.com” followed by some video of a little girl being applauded for what must have been successfully completing treatment. (A lovely moment, to be sure.)

The Let’s Outdo Cancer website details Pfizer’s research pipeline and product portfolio. There’s also important information on how to participate in a cancer clinical trial and a partnership with the American Cancer Society to “improve health outcomes in medically underrepresented communities across the United States.”

There is no doubt that we’re benefiting from the discoveries made by Pfizer and their partners. We’re living better, healthier lives. There’s a ton of good information on the site but it doesn’t have much to do with “Here’s to Science.”

A one-off effort like a Super Bowl ad can help achieve specific objectives but, in my experience, plans need follow-through and messages require repetition. I don’t know their actual plan, of course. I’m not an insider. But if Pfizer seeks to promote a positive message and increase engagement with stakeholders, I have a suggestion. They have an enormous opportunity to create a more receptive public if they work towards increasing trust in science.

Engaging a wide array of audiences on the value of science is critically important to elevate trust. Dr. Marijn Dekkers, former CEO of Bayer and former Chairman of Unilever, pointed out at a financial conference several years back that “even the most outstanding ideas and scientific breakthroughs have no chance if people do not accept, appreciate and support them. All too often, people are afraid of — or uneasy about — new ideas, inventions, processes or products.”

The public acceptance of innovation is clearly at risk according to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual trust and credibility survey. It found that respondents believe innovation is poorly managed by nearly a two-to-one margin. And while technology as a whole is trusted by 76 percent, gene-based medicine is only at 50 percent. (It gets worse. GMO foods are trusted only by 32 percent.)

The issue goes far beyond industry interests. Poor science literacy can eat at the core of our democracy. Professor Jon D. Miller, now at the University of Michigan, warned us nearly 20 years ago that “people’s inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process.” He continued that for many issues affecting society, “if you don’t know a little science [it’s] hard to follow these debates. A lot of journalism [will] not make sense to you.”

So, here we are. The current state is that science and scientists are under attack. Facts are being denied and misinformation proliferates. Critical thinking is being abandoned. Education is underfunded. Science is politicized and weaponized. It must stop.

It’s not a problem that can be addressed by a one-year budget cycle or even a five or ten-year plan. It will take a generational blueprint that needs to be comprehensive, coordinated, and well capitalized to see a return on the investment.

Getting the message out is only one side of the coin, though. Ensuring the message is received requires the same sort of effort. The Super Bowl ad should have been the kick-off of an ongoing effort to engage, inform, and educate the public about science and scientific principles. But it’s not too late. We need conveners. Partners need to be assembled and resources gathered. Objectives must be determined and milestones assigned.

Let’s get started.

Between posts I invite you to follow me on Threads @pauloestreicher.

No Easy Fix: Opinion and Belief vs. Facts and Truth

We’ve all experienced the feeling. Our hopes get raised and then... splat. No payoff. No satisfaction. 

I got excited when I saw the title of Adam Grant’s recent article, “The Science of Reasoning With Unreasonable People,” published in The New York Times. Could “motivational interviewing” help win over people who choose beliefs, faith, and opinions over facts? What wonderful news! We need a breakthrough when it comes to persuading people to accept the facts around a host of science-based issues including climate change and vaccine safety. 

Alas, it was not to be. In one example detailed in the article, an intensive effort managed to get an anti-vaxxer from negative to, well, a tiny bit less negative. At the end of his piece, there was a tinge of resignation. Grant wrote, “All I can do is try to understand their thinking and ask if they’re open to some rethinking. The rest is up to them.”

All I can do? There has to be more, right? 

It turns out that motivational interviewing might have a limited role in addressing the vaccine hesitancy of some new mothers. A study cited in the article demonstrated a seven percent (statistically significant) increase in vaccination coverage in a subset of infants. While a good outcome, the authors recognized a number of study design limitations. And in actual practice, there’s a huge amount of ground to gain.

The chasm between hard data and belief exists because facts don’t matter to a big chunk of the population. We’ve known this for years. If facts were all it took, we’d be done: People wouldn’t smoke cigarettes, abuse drugs, be racist, or refuse to wear motorcycle or bicycle helmets. If the facts don’t fit the person’s worldview or “frame,” as the cognitive linguist George Lakoff terms it, the facts bounce off like bullets shot at Superman’s chest. Your challenger deflects all the information while you get blue in the face.

So, it’s clear that information and insight by themselves don’t produce change. It’s the desire to change and seeing the value in change that drives us forward. 

One desire killer is inertia. We’ve heard the excuse: “That’s the way we’ve always done things.” There may be no consequences: “Who’s going to notice, who’s going to care?” We may feel powerless: “I don’t have the resources, I don’t have the access.”

A second drag on change is simple ignorance and, on this issue, I’m having déjà vu. I wrote about “Swine Flu's Teachable Moment” nearly a dozen years ago: “It was disturbing to read about a growing public health threat in "Vaccine Refusal, Mandatory Immunization, and the Risks of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases" in this week's New England Journal of Medicine (Omer et al.). The bottom line is that there is a critical need for new education and policy efforts to protect children (sometimes from their own parents) and the general public.”

Dr. Marijn Dekkers, former CEO of Bayer and former Chairman of Unilever, pointed out at financial conference several years back, “Even the most outstanding ideas and scientific breakthroughs have no chance if people do not accept, appreciate and support them. All too often, people are afraid of – or uneasy about – new ideas, inventions, processes or products.” Dropping information – even crucial or compelling data – onto the heads of an unprepared public, or expecting a response to another “call to action,” is unproductive and unrealistic.

We’re in this situation partly because our science literacy is abysmal. The United States ranks 18th out of 78 countries, according to the most recent analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics. China, Estonia, Japan, Korea, Canada, Poland, Slovenia, UK, Netherlands, and Germany are among those ahead of us.

And it’s an even bigger issue than the public health or economic competitiveness. Poor science literacy can eat at the core of our democracy. Professor Jon D. Miller (now at the University of Michigan) told The New York Times in 2005 that “…people’s inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process.” He continued that for so many issues affecting society, "if you don't know a little science [it’s] hard to follow these debates. A lot of journalism [will] not make sense to you."

It’s not a problem that can be addressed by a one-year budget cycle or even a five or ten-year plan. It will take a generational blueprint that needs to be comprehensive, coordinated, and well capitalized in order to see a return on the investment. Let’s get started.

Between posts, I invite you to follow me @pauoestreicher.

Biden Won – So Did Science

The most anti-science, science-denying president of our lifetime was defeated by, you guessed it, science. While the election was close, it still has to rank as one of the biggest ironies in history.

Even so, seeing how tens of millions of people voted against their own self-interest is one of the most baffling and infuriating phenomena I know. It helps to prove that a belief can overpower a fact, how a lie can (shall I say it?) trump the truth. 

The facts and allegations are painful to repeat but, briefly, Donald Trump failed to disclose taxes or foreign entanglements; destroyed immigrant families; encouraged white supremacists; belittled women; covered up ties to Russia; illegally used campaign funds; threatened allies; praised dictators; created economic hardship with a trade war; killed environmental protections; undermined funding for education and the arts; enriched himself and his family at taxpayer expense; threatened political adversaries; mocked disabled persons; disparaged soldiers; attacked the news media; rammed through lifetime appointments to the judiciary; advocated voter suppression and intimidation efforts, and lied to the public – according to fact checkers – approximately 25,000 times.

But put aside his long list of self-serving, amoral, unethical, and likely illegal activities for a moment. It was the COVID-19 issue that Donald Trump handed to Joe Biden. While Trump won in some of the states hit hardest by the virus, the pandemic cost him the election. He and tens of millions of others may have ignored the science, but a bug less than 0.000004 inches across tipped the scales to Biden. 

Trump cowed Republican leaders, tossed the Obama “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents” and all but disbanded the White House Coronavirus Task Force. He called Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the world’s top infectious disease specialists, a “disaster,” said scientists were “idiots,” and falsely claimed “doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID.” 

Despite all of that and the desperate efforts to gaslight the public on the seriousness and deadly scope of COVID-19 – a White House press release claimed the president ended the pandemic – Trump could not alter the science of a viral infection. He couldn’t bully the virus away.  He couldn’t short-circuit the careful research and development process required for new vaccines and therapeutics. 

Joe Biden did push a few other campaign issues: Trump’s lack of character, morality, and empathy (“The Battle for the Soul of America”); the assaults on affordable healthcare and attempts to strip protections from those with preexisting conditions, and the diminished standing of the United Sates around the world. In fact, some reports had the economy and health care out-polling COVID-19 as key election drivers.

Yet the Biden team ended up displaying some remarkable consistency in messaging on the COVID crisis. Why? The economy and health care are complex issues. COVID-19 is not. It’s impossible to ignore. The virus is surging again and predictions are the worst is yet to come. Some will continue to claim it’s a hoax, that the numbers are inflated, and it’s not much worse than a bad cold. But the number of cases, positivity rates, hospital admissions, and deaths are hard to argue unless you’re locked into a belief system where no facts will ever penetrate. 

Trump couldn’t help but to respond, not with actions to protect the public health but with more derision. “With the fake news, everything is COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID,” Trump complained at a mostly maskless rally. It was painful to see how he politicized science and it used as a wedge, driving people further apart.

A platform based largely on science, medicine, and public health won this election – barely. We will win the battle against this coronavirus with the right leadership and resources; naming a new coronavirus task force on November 9 was the president-elect’s first major announcement. But the fight comes with a terrible, sometimes irretrievable cost, the result of missteps and misdeeds from a malign, incompetent Administration. 

Like hundreds of millions of others around the world, though, I’m hopeful that in the days and years ahead that facts will matter, and our scientific, political, educational, and journalistic institutions will again be held in the highest regard.

Between blog posts, I invite you to follow me @pauloestreicher.

Science Denial Part 2: A Threat to Children, Education and Competitiveness

The New York Times published a special Education Issue last week, “Learning What Works” in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. The articles, collectively, set out an array of recommendations from top experts. They include:

• Increase attention to ideation and creativity
• Make teaching more immersive
• Increase teacher training and teacher pay
• Develop and distribute better instructional materials
• Encourage mentoring by outside experts or college/graduate students
• Provide the history and the context for science
• Dedicate time to applying ideas and practical invention
• Raise curriculum and testing standards

These are all good and important. So, let's go! There are many priorities out there but STEM education must be in the highest classification. We know from the scores obtained by the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment that 15-year-old students in the U.S. perform about average in reading. Average isn’t great but, when it comes to the math and science scores, it’s practically outstanding. Out of 34 countries, the U.S. ranked 17th in science and 25th in math. (The 2012 results will be released at the end of this year.)

But there are barriers to success even within the science teaching community. Dr. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, said that roughly 20 percent to 25 percent of the nation’s biology teachers don’t believe in evolution and subscribe to creationist views. Teaching evolution and/or climate change in schools has been hotly debated by legislatures and school boards in states including Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas. These boards should embrace and promote, not disparage and reject, the facts.

Students receive at least some science as part of a required curriculum. But what happens when they arrive at home? Are the lessons in science class reinforced or refuted? In a 2012 poll by Gallup only 15% of U.S. citizens believe humans evolved without any intervention from God. Thirty-two percent said God guided the evolutionary process and 46% said God created humans in their present form. (Seven percent had no opinion.)

And what do the students hear from those in power? Rather than lead the country through and away from false and flawed ideas, a number of our elected leaders are cheerfully, bombastically, pulling the country backward. In Congress, the House Science Committee hardly holds to its title. Rep. Paul Broun (GA) fumed, “All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.” Former Science Committee member Todd Akin (MO) famously opposed abortion for rape victims, in part, because “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Rep. Dana Rohrabacker (CA) said recently, “Global warming is a total fraud” and dismissed global warming as a plot to institute a “global government.” His suggestion that “dinosaur flatulence” could explain historic climate change patterns was also notable. Rep. James Sensebrenner (WI) similarly amped up the conspiracy theorists when he said climate change theory was a “massive international scientific fraud.” Rep. Ralph Hall (TX) also charged that climate change is the product of a global conspiracy of scientists and told the National Journal in 2011 that he didn’t believe in a human influence on global warming because “I don’t think we can control what God controls.”

This competition between God and science is a false construct and distracts us from the issues. In his book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2006), Dr. Francis Collins, director the National Institutes of Health, wrote, “the principles of faith are, in fact, complementary with the principles of science.” He went on, “there is no conflict in being a rigorous scientist and a person who believes in a God who takes personal interest in each one of us. Science’s domain is to explore nature. God’s domain is in the spiritual world, a realm not possible to explore with the tools and language of science.” Not believing in a “personal God,” Albert Einstein, nonetheless said, "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

The task of increasing our STEM preparedness goes well beyond the confines of schools. It’s immensely complex, opposing interests are deeply entrenched, and will take much longer and cost much more than most people realize. It’s not a problem that can be addressed by a five or ten year plan. It will take a generational blueprint that needs to be comprehensive, cohesive and well capitalized in order to see a return on the investment.

Between blog posts, I invite you to follow me on Twitter @pauloestreicher.

Science Denial, the U.S. and Us

This article also appears in odwyerpr.com.

Before a Call to Action, We Need Insights and a Plan

Professor Adam Frank at the University of Rochester rang a warning bell about the dangers of science denial in an important op-ed (Welcome to the Age of Denial) in The New York Times last week. He stated the sad fact that, “it is politically effective, and socially acceptable, to deny scientific fact.” Science denial is becoming more entrenched and culturally correct.

This juggernaut of illogic is like a cancer that has metastasized. He noted that, “climate deniers, taking pages from the creationists’ PR playbook, have manufactured doubt about fundamental issues in climate science that were decided scientifically decades ago. And anti-vaccine campaigners brandish a few long-discredited studies to make unproven claims about links between autism and vaccination.”

How do we fight this? Dr. Frank called on the scientific community to channel Carl Sagan, the late astronomer, author and science personality, and do more communicating (and for the general public to be more active, too). The Equation blog from the Union of Concerned Scientists echoed this “call to action.”

Yes, scientists must learn how to engage and how to communicate. I know there are some efforts underway at institutions such as the National Academy of Sciences and Stony Brook University’s Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science but, no matter what, there are critical steps that must come first. We need to ask questions and use the resulting information to generate the insights necessary to develop and implement a plan.

So, a “call to action” directed where, with what information, in what form? Before anything is done, we must understand the causes, motivations and forces at work. What are the religious, political and corporate interests, and what are their strategies and tactics? And, we must know our target audiences, and their issues and concerns. What’s the right language, the most compelling examples, what will it take to be persuasive? We know it’s not just about the facts – otherwise, everyone would accept global warming and evolution, no one would smoke, kids would get vaccinated and all motorcyclists would wear helmets. Scientists (and marketing and communications professionals) need to marry specific, emotionally-based messages with the factual.

The news media, of course, have a huge role to play. In misguided attempts to achieve fair balance (or, cynically, sometimes achieve the outcomes they wish), the media feeds into false equivalency – providing equal coverage to opposing views when, in reality, one side dramatically outweighs the other. An example was brought into the sunshine on the pages of The Wall Street Journal. It published a letter last year, “No Need to Panic About Global Warming (January 27, 2012), that said, “There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.” The editor noted the letter “has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article.” I checked those names. Of the 16, there was only one climate researcher and one atmospheric scientist. 

Indeed, a few days later, another letter was published entitled, “Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate.” The 38 climate, environmental and atmospherics experts who signed the letter admonished, “Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition?” They went on: “While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. Research shows that more than 97% of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused. It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses.”

This isn’t just about promoting the truth or science getting its fair share. Professor Jon D. Miller, now at the University of Michigan, told The New York Times in 2005 that “People’s inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process.” The Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy points out that “Many of the nation’s founding fathers were citizen scientists,” including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and George Washington. “John Adams, for instance, spoke of the “science of government.” In a debate with Benjamin Franklin in 1776, Adams invoked the principle of mechanical equilibrium to argue on behalf of his conception for our government’s system of checks and balances—designed, at least in part, to ensure policies based on verified, trustworthy evidence."

We've had one ”wake-up call" after another on the issue of science denial. But it's complex -- there isn't just one thing we should do. To start, though, we must review and revere our history, and use those founding principles again. The nation began with questioning dogma, exploring options, celebrating invention and spreading information. That brought us a long way and it can bring us further still.

Between blog posts, I invite you to follow me on Twitter @pauloestreicher.