In another attempt to concentrate power, U.S. President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order to ¡°restore gold standard science¡± in federal research and policy.
It sounds reasonable given the instances of bad or faked science being published, including high-profile papers on Alzheimer¡¯s drug development and one misleadingly claim that hydroxychloroquine would cure COVID-19. In the last decade, scientists themselves have grown concerned about the large number of studies whose promising results couldn¡¯t be replicated.
However, researchers dedicated to reforming their field say the president¡¯s plan isn¡¯t a solution. It¡¯s a way to give government officials the power to reject evidence they disagree with ¡ª without any accountability or transparency.
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