The federal government has an important role in the support and advancement of science. Science should be free of political influence. Decision making should not be based on partisanship.

Yet, as science professor John Richard Schrock shows, politics have often intruded on decisions about which policies to fund and what to make public. He cites bad decisions over the years under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

But nothing in the past equals the Trump administration’s open was against science. Trump has placed non-scientists into key roles, where they are able to suppress or manipulate scientific findings to satisfy his po,itical base. His much-ridiculed effort to compel the National Weather Service to defend his absurd claims about the likely path of a hurricane were a small example of his efforts to suppress science in the Environmental Protection Administration, the Agriculture Department, and other agencies. While the rest of the world worries about climate change, Trump insists that there is no threat and that what scientists call climate change is merely the weather, about which we can do nothing.

In addition to teaching science, teachers must teach the ethics of science, the importance of reaching conclusions based on evidence, and the necessity of excluding politics from the work of scientists.