Joshua Weitz

📣 New preprint from the SCIMaP team!

Across three studies, we show that communicating the economic impact of NIH funding cuts—especially with interactive quizzes and maps—decreases approval and motivates action to oppose the cuts, across the political spectrum. 🧵 1/8
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Keep up the effort... via Roll Call

"Republicans brush aside Trump plan to slash NIH funding"
rollcall.com/2025/07/28/r...

SCIMaP - Impacts of Federal Cuts to Science and Medical Research View Projected Impact of the FY2026 Budget Cuts to the NIH

Sunday reminder from #SCIMaP:

The White House FY26 budget includes $18B in cuts to NIH that will lead to >$46B in economic losses in communities nationwide + long-term impacts on our biomedical + health discovery pipeline. It's well past time to rethink & reset.

scienceimpacts.org/fy26

SCIMaP - Impacts of Federal Cuts to Science and Medical Research View Projected Impact of the FY2026 Budget Cuts to the NIH

Our #SCIMaP analysis of the WH proposed FY26 NIH budget makes it clear: this will lead to economic and job losses in communities nationwide:

scienceimpacts.org/fy26

SCIMaP - Impacts of Federal Cuts to Science and Medical Research View Projected Impact of the FY2026 Budget Cuts to the NIH

Our #SCIMaP analysis of the impacts of NIH budget cuts on economies nationwide. Perhaps someone might ask why the administration is intent on undermining our discovery pipeline as well as causing near-term economic harm?

scienceimpacts.org/fy26

Long-form post now out... had been meaning to wait, but discovering Coyne's blog crystallized it for me. A book on 'The War on Science' that sees 100% of threat coming from the left is a sign that the book, upon publication, is already out of date.

joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/false-equi...

bsky.app/profile/josh...

While Coyne, Krauss and others add fuel to the fire of culture wars while keeping their ideological blinders on (no matter what the cost) the rest of us are going to have to make a choice to speak up and rebuild the foundations of the next 80+ years of American leadership in science.

/🧵

Scapegoating may feel satisfying but it tends not to fix things because it is disconnected from data.

As scientists we should know, "Time will tell, and it is the measurements that will tell us." (Jim Peebles, Nobel Prize Physics, 2019).

Our focus on communicating impacts is in that spirit.

I will have more to say on this soon, but for now, I would direct your attention to our #SCIMaP interdisciplinary effort focusing on how efforts to frame attacks as targeted to a narrow set of elite institutions are, in fact, attacks on communities all across the U.S.

bsky.app/profile/mala...

Comparison of Research Spending on New Drug Approvals by the National Institutes of Health vs the Pharmaceutical Industry, 2010-2019 How does National Institutes of Health (NIH) investment in pharmaceutical innovation compare with investment by the pharmaceutical industry? In this cross-sectional study of 356 drugs approved by the ...

We can't build things using federal funds?

Then explain how 99% of FDA approved drugs from 2010-2019 are supported, in part, by NIH funded grants.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Meet the early career scientists planning to leave the United States Decreased funding, reduced opportunities and growing uncertainty has made life tough for international postdocs living in the US.

America is not a world-leading destination for science?

Tell that to the students and scientists from all over the world who have come to America to study precisely because of our exceptional system of higher ed... and who are now turning elsewhere.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Perhaps the essayists might argue that American leadership has already been undone. But I find that those who are inclined to "tear it all down" tend to have a rather distorted view of what it is that has been built.

Perhaps they consider themselves above the fray.

They are certainly useful, their message (if left uncontested) will drive not just false equivalencies, but the rationale for the ideological pursuit of the elimination of America's innovation driven economy.

Will I read it? Yes - precisely because this group (Coyne, Krauss, Wax, Saad, Peterson + more) are providing a palatable intellectual rationale for undoing American leadership in science, research, and higher-education.

Instead of meeting the moment, the choice appears focused on feeding the flames of old culture wars rather than confronting the actual war in progress.

Moving to the present, the choice by Krauss, Coyne, and this coterie of aggrieved essayists to focus exclusively on threats to science from 'The Left' is a choice, one that shows a marked lack of curiosity from a supposedly intellectually curious group.

As well, the right generally has far more money with which to spread disinformation and attack science on a host of issues."

But the antiscience of those on the right -- a coalition of fundamentalist churches and corporations ... -- has more more dangerous public-policy implications because it's about forestalling policy based on evidence to protect destructive business models...

Ironically, Otto's book has a foreword by Lawrence Krauss (surprising that he would use the same title for his new volume but oh well). Otto had this to say early in the book in a section entitled 'The Battle for the Future':

"Politically, the war on science is coming from both left and right..."

The War on Science: Who's Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It The War on Science: Who's Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It [Otto, Shawn Lawrence] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The War on Science: Who's Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It

As context for next week's release, there is another book called 'The War on Science: Who's Waging it, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do About It' written by Shawn Otto and published back in 2016 by Milkweed Press.

It is on the table next to my laptop as I type.
www.amazon.com/War-Science-...

Plan to read "The War on Science" out 7/29 (taking one for the team) & saw that Jerry Coyne summarized it as:

"A group of 39 essays ... about how science is being corrupted by the Left."

Are the essayists truly unable to grapple with the existential threat from the right?

It matters.

a 🧵

In action: the Sec. of HHS intent on undermining the central mission of the agency he oversees.

Major new release from our Science and Community Impacts Mapping Project #SCIMaP - scienceimpacts.org - detailing the core spatial methods that quantify and visualize how "targeted" NIH cuts ripple outwards to communities nationwide. Enabling details & code links below.

👇

Meet the early career scientists planning to leave the United States Decreased funding, reduced opportunities and growing uncertainty has made life tough for international postdocs living in the US.

US science is built on global teams of discoverers. Mess that up and we lose far more than next year's publication, we lose colleagues, friends, ideas, and a future built on combining training and perspectives that had been (even now) inimitable.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Read the Agreement Between Columbia and the Trump Administration (Gift Article) The university agreed to pay $200 million to settle allegations that it had failed to do enough to stop the harassment of Jewish students.

Read the full text of the Columbia agreement.

It's really so much worse than skimming the headlines lets on. The $200 million is nothing compared to the institutional autonomy that Columbia is surrendering.

#academicsky

Gift link to NYT posting of it here:

Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow NIH to cancel health grants via N. Weixel at The Hill

"Priorities"

Story via Nathaniel Weixel @thehill.com

thehill.com/policy/healt...

The National Cancer Institute faces steep budget cuts and a staff exodus Current and former employees report that morale has "tanked" as the administration hollows out the agency, with many scientists leaving in frustration. The cuts are already impacting basic operations ...

"The National Cancer Institute is being targeted by the Trump administration’s downsizing. Current and former employees report that morale has “tanked” as the administration hollows out the agency, with many scientists leaving in frustration."

Seems bad for Americans.

Feds Axed Grants Across Red, Blue States, Report Finds The Center for American Progress says the Trump administration has targeted for termination more than 4,000 grants across over 600 institutions. Adjusting for statewide enrollment, South Dakota is hit...

Featured in @insidehighered.com, #SCIMAP analysis along with new @americanprogress.bsky.social report detailing impacts of terminated grant nationwide.

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

To recap: more $ committed per grant -> fewer grants -> reduced percentiles -> setting a precedent for next year ... also fewer grants -> reduced "need" for admin -> more RIFs & keep cycling downwards given Vought's view of power of the purse as a 'ceiling' rather than the actual budget.