Publish at April 16 2025 Updated April 16 2025
There's something rotten in the kingdom of Denmark.
Act 1, Scene 4 - Hamlet (William Shakespeare)
It's a whiff that we've all been able to smell over the past few years as we observe the media, social networks and even geopolitics. We may have a network of knowledge, but the fact remains that reason is frequently discredited. We have fallen into an era driven by anger and fear. The covid-19 pandemic was a wrench in the sense that, suddenly, a large part of the population began to doubt anything remotely related to scientific knowledge. This kind of obscurantism had always existed, but it was mostly confined to the margins. Few people were inclined to question what centuries of knowledge had demonstrated.
Today, this is no longer the case. Some shamelessly call into question vaccines, climatology as a whole, the work of numerous sociologists on inequalities and, why not, the Earth's rotundity, knowledge confirmed since Antiquity, but which is said to be a NASA conspiracy. Who would have thought that the agency of a country that wasn't even founded could have so much power 3,000 years ago? All joking aside, mistrust of everything has become particularly acute in the case of researchers who dare to question "the impressions of the moment" on any subject: immigration, travel, the environment, biology, etc.
We can feel the tide turning in many countries with far-right governments. One of the first things these individuals usually do when they come to power is to muzzle researchers. Because researchers are often the safeguards against the sweeping declarations of these regimes. It's difficult, for example, to implement authoritarian measures against crime on the pretext of a complete loss of control when scientists come along to nuance the portrait, or even invalidate it.
Donald Trump is the most identifiable standard-bearer, and his actions since the start of his second term have been exactly that. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance has even said in a speech that university professors are the enemy. A warlike vocabulary that no longer conceals the disgust of a conservative part of society towards knowledge in general. The latter would like to see societies return to a greater emphasis on faith and religious rather than scientific principles. As a result, the American president doesn't waste a minute.
Entire knowledge pages are being deleted from government websites, terms are being banned from official communications, research grants are being cut, threats are being made to all the country's universities, and he has even signed an executive order to eliminate the Federal Department of Education. For some, the idea of decentralizing education so that schools can take charge of it may seem attractive. The reality is that it allows concepts such as creationism, to name but one, to be promoted in the classroom.
This historian of science has pointed it out: ignorance is no longer a consequence, but literally a goal. In Hungary, Argentina and wherever these governments point, the idea is to guillotine science and knowledge to ensure that opposition is reduced to nothing. We are thus entering a "golden age of unculture".
So, what should we do about this backward slide in knowledge, planned and desired by a fringe of the extreme right? The answer is both simple and complicated. Resist.
Scientists need to come out and denounce this reality as loudly as possible. It sounds childish, but it's a very high risk to take in a context of authoritarian governments that have no qualms about imprisoning dissidents. Nevertheless, these are important gestures, hence the "Stand Up for Science" movement, which in March 2025 staged a day of mobilization where thousands of Americans gathered to denounce the policies of the Trump administration. A similar protest had taken place during Donald Trump's first term in office in 2017. The protest was also made in solidarity in various other countries around the world, including France, as a reminder of the dangerous loss to the world of science if one of its biggest research partners were to be muzzled.
Since 2020, moreover, a group of researchers called Scientists in Rebellion has existed to fight against this fundamental anti-science movement. For them, civil disobedience has become a legitimate approach, given that public authorities no longer listen to them on hyper-serious and urgent issues such as the current climate crisis. Although the collective is more focused on environmental issues, they obviously support their American colleagues who have been hard hit by the policies of the White House.
Some suggest that France and other countries that have not yet succumbed to the siren songs of anti-science should welcome their most eminent researchers, so that they can continue their important work. This may be a short-term solution, but there's no guarantee that France will maintain its status as an ideal academic environment. Here too, anti-science editorials abound in various media.
In fact, resistance must not only come from the academic sphere. Everyone must seek to protect knowledge in general. It may be comforting in these difficult times to lose interest in the world, but that's exactly what the guillotineers of knowledge want. A population that will no longer ask questions and will only drink in the information provided by the regime.
General indifference has led in part to this obscurantist movement. So, to avoid plunging completely, we need to cultivate not our ignorance but our knowledge to resist this wave.
Image: Baref00t0rchid from Pixabay
References
Corniou, Marine. "The far right at war with science." Québec Science. Last updated November 7, 2024. https://www.quebecscience.qc.ca/edito/extreme-droite-guerre-contre-science/.
Fecteau, Clovis. "S'informer, c'est résister à l'effondrement de la vérité." Le Devoir. Last updated: January 24, 2025. https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/libre-opinion/835651/libre-opinion-informer-c-est-resister-effondrement-verite?.
Foucart, Stéphane. ""Trump's war on science is the terminal phase of a long illness whose first signs have been ignored"." Le Monde.fr. Last updated: March 9, 2025. https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/03/09/la-guerre-de-trump-contre-la-science-est-la-phase-terminale-d-une-longue-maladie-dont-les-premiers-signes-ont-ete-ignores_6577385_3232.html.
Perez-Tisserant, Emmanuelle. "Stand Up for Science France: 'Why I'm mobilizing'." The Conversation. Last updated: March 7, 2025. https://theconversation.com/stand-up-for-science-france-pourquoi-je-me-mobilise-251632.
Robles-Gil, Alexa. "Thousands gather across U.S. and world in Stand Up for Science events." Science. Last updated: March 7, 2025. https://www.science.org/content/article/thousands-gather-across-u-s-stand-science-events.
Scientists In Rebellion. Accessed April 13, 2025. https://scientifiquesenrebellion.fr/.
Stand Up For Science. Accessed April 13, 2025. https://standupforscience2025.org/.
"" Stand up for science": what is this movement launched by American researchers attacked by Trump?" SudOuest.fr. Last updated: March 5, 2025. https://www.sudouest.fr/international/etats-unis/stand-up-for-science-c-est-quoi-ce-mouvement-lance-par-des-chercheurs-americains-attaques-par-trump-23513549.php.
"Ère Trump: comment se fabrique l'ignorance?" France Culture. Last updated: March 31, 2025. https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/questions-du-soir-l-idee/ere-trump-comment-se-fabrique-l-ignorance-8381602.
From ignorance to knowledge: a policy to free ourselves from obscurantism - Thot Cursus
https://cursus.edu/fr/8250/de-lignorance-au-savoir-une-politique-pour-saffranchir-de-lobscurantisme
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