Trump the Anti-Scientist

One of the most disturbing personality traits of Donald Trump (and they are legion) is his disregard for science and his reliance on his ‘instinct’ to deal with issues that should be informed by science.

We have seen this in Trump’s frequent absurd tweets regarding climate change.  Here is a sample:

• Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax! 
• The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. 
• Any and all weather events are used by the GLOBAL WARMING HOAXSTERS to justify higher taxes to save our planet! They don't believe it $$$$!

Even among conservatives there is a growing consensus that climate change is real and is caused by human activity, not to mention the totality of scientific organizations and 97% of climate scientists that have been trying to warn the world for the last 20 years.

As in all things, it is difficult to know whether Trump actually believes the things he says, or whether they are just a necessary maneuver in his machinations to delight his followers.  Another example is Trump’s championing of the Obama Birther movement.  Did Trump actually believe that Obama was not born in Hawaii, or did the birther movement just happen to be the best way for him to cultivate a radical and fawning group of admirers to bolster his political chances?  It doesn’t really matter, the effect is the same.  One is not better than the other.

Trump’s primary purpose in everything he says or does is to focus attention on himself.  He is the ultimate narcissist.  Vanity is his sole motivation.  In concert with this love of self and desperately insecure need for attention is his love of drama, hyperbole and shock.  He refers to his gut and his instinct for two reasons: (1) Because gut and instinct reflect all decision-making and policy back to Trump and his all-powerful position.  He is the arbiter of all things, his ideas are the basis for all policy.  He doesn’t need other opinions, research or facts.  (2)  Gut and instinct can be voiced in provocative, sensational ways that contribute to his rabid followers’ allegiance and uncritical love.  There is nothing like a non-PC declaration of ‘gut’ to show that Trump is ‘sticking it to the elites and the left-wing scientists’.

Science is the exact opposite of all things Trumpian.  There is, of course, plenty of ego in science, as in all things human.  But science is generally expressed in sober, unsensational terms.  Because of its complexity, most science is not well-suited for aphoristic, melodramatic statements.  And sadly, it is not easily understood by the public, especially a public that has been poorly educated in science and raised on a diet of pseudo-science or outright anti-science pablum. Scientists and physicians, though highly motivated and eager for recognition in their fields, serve the higher goals of knowledge, truth and humanity.  They are polar opposites of Trump.

Scientists are by their nature detailed, deep thinkers who avoid the spotlight and prefer to develop their ideas fully before exposing them to their peers or the public.  True scientists abhor anecdotal data and theories, which are the majority of the public’s (and Trump’s) ideas about science.  The scientific method and evidence-based science are the only acceptable basis for theories and proclamations from a scientific point of view.

In the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump’s anti-science personality has had devastating effect and will probably continue to harm the country’s efforts to combat this plague.  His dismissal of the virus as no worse than the flu cost the country weeks of preparation time and a large number of deaths can certainly be directly attributed to this ‘gut’ decision-making.

Another potentially disastrous ‘instinct’ of Trump in this pandemic is his premature and probably mistaken cheerleading for hydroxychloroquine as a treatment.  Any normal leader would have left such decisions about treatment regimes to his medical advisors and the medical community at large.  By touting an unproven treatment, Trump has probably made the clinicians’ and the research scientists’ jobs much more difficult.  There are already reports of patients refusing to be enrolled in trials for other treatments (such as remdesivir, which may prove to be a much better option) because they ‘want the Trump drug’.

Trump’s endorsement of the malarial drug was clearly the typical Trump technique of aggressively associating himself with everything so that he can claim success if there is indeed success.  It is all about Trump, always:  Trump’s gut, his instinct, his likes, dislikes, his thin skin his shocking ignorance of science.  It is bad enough in the normal run of the government.  In a world-threatening pandemic, it is outright criminal.