David Legates.
Editor's Note:
Naomi Oreskes is Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University and the author of "Why Trust Science?"
The opinions expressed in this comment are yours.
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(CNN) -
What do you think about a 75-year-old dream that has died?
In 1945, Vannevar Bush, the dean at MIT who mobilized American science during World War II, laid out the blueprint for what would become the social contract between science and American society for the next half century.
The United States would support science, particularly through a new agency, called the National Science Foundation (NSF), but also through existing or expanded federal agencies such as NASA, the Weather Service, and the Geological Survey. In return, science would support America through technical innovation that would improve our material conditions and the information that would enable us to meet and solve life's challenges.
The government was key to Bush's vision: NSF would be a federal agency and it would be the federal government, through congressional appropriations, that would support basic scientific research, trusting that the investment of taxpayer dollars would be easily reimbursed.
For several decades, that dream seemed to be fulfilled.
Congress generously supported science, and both Republican and Democratic presidents signed the relevant appropriations bills.
Those presidents also appointed highly qualified individuals to lead science-oriented agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and the National Office for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
And science, in general, delivered on Bush's promise.
Scientists developed safe and effective vaccines against deadly childhood diseases, advanced the development of computer science and artificial intelligence, created a theoretical framework for understanding why earthquakes occur where they occur, and learned how to make remarkably accurate weather forecasts.
Not all of this was done with federal money, but a large amount was.
But then many things changed, one was climate change.
As early as the 1960s scientists were predicting that burning fossil fuels would change our climate in dangerous ways, and in 1988 they were telling us that the climate was, in fact, changing.
But, starting in the 1990s, instead of accepting these facts and finding ways to act in line with our values and principles, conservative political and business leaders began to dismiss and deny them.
LOOK: The times that Trump has denied or questioned science, climate change, the vaccine, fires, among others
As the evidence grew stronger, the denial did not yield to acceptance, grudgingly or otherwise.
Instead, the denial became increasingly aggressive and belligerent.
Today, denial has turned deadly.
The western United States is reeling from unprecedented economic and ecological damage from wildfires and the suffocating smoke that those fires have left in their wake.
As the fires continue, an Oregon official has advised people to prepare for a "mass death incident."
Meanwhile, another monstrous hurricane looms over the Gulf Coast, while four other tropical storms churn, an almost unprecedented event.
The damage and destruction of "extreme weather events", fueled by man-made climate change, is no longer a prediction, theory or hypothesis.
It is our usual reality.
We are losing lives and livelihoods.
And amid this climate-fueled hydra of catastrophe, what is our President Donald Trump doing?
Hire a notorious climate science denier, David Legates, to help run NOAA, the federal agency responsible for giving us good climate information.
The Washington Post reported this week that Legates previously served as a Delaware climatologist, but was "expelled" due to his "controversial views" on the matter.
But although the proposed appointment has been duly reported in the press, and scientists have protested, it is sadly not news.
This administration has repeatedly placed people who have questioned or rejected science in positions of authority throughout the federal service.
Vice President Pence rejects evolutionary theory and suggested that smoking does not kill, and the president himself, as is well known, has claimed that climate change is a hoax.
Another day, another run over.
In these circumstances, it's tempting to respond by standing up for science and scientists, and calling for more research funding, more STEM education, and more scientists in the works through greater inclusion efforts.
But the reality of the past two decades is that that approach doesn't work.
As scientific conclusions become more indisputable, the machinations of those threatened by them become more scandalous.
It is clear that our scientific social contract is broken.
Too many of our political leaders no longer seem to believe that science serves our national purpose.
They see scientific evidence not as something to work with, but as something to solve.
Iraqi writer and war veteran Roy Scranton has written that the way he handled the dark reality of war was by embracing his own death.
Every day he woke up and told himself that he had nothing to fear, because he was already dead.
"All that mattered was that I did everything I could to make sure everyone else came back alive."
Scranton's experience mirrors that of John Kerry in Vietnam, where he reminded himself that "every day was extra."
When Scranton returned home, however, he was surprised to find federal troops in New Orleans, and then New York and New Jersey, when military units were called in to deal with the chaos of climate change.
He concluded that, as in Iraq, he needed to accept the reality that the world as he knew it was already dead.
Only then could he begin to look ahead and plan for a different future.
When we register our outrage at the latest government assault on science, we continue with our own version of denial.
We cling to Vannevar Bush's dream of a social contract where scientists generate knowledge and understanding, and our leaders and fellow citizens appreciate and apply that knowledge.
The unfortunate reality is that our elected government is increasingly populated by many men and women who not only ignore scientific facts, but appear to despise them and the people who produce them.
They see science as something that gets in the way of their political goals, and therefore needs to be pushed aside.
The solution to this cannot be a call for more science or the restoration of "scientific integrity," whatever that may be.
We have tried and it has failed.
There comes a point where perhaps one simply has to accept that the dream is dead and it is time for a new one.
I don't know what a new social contract for science would look like, but I'm pretty sure it's time to start looking for it.
Donald trump