Will Donald Trump be the first “anti-science” president of the United States, as some have claimed?
He has shown almost no interest in science during his election campaign, but his few utterances in this area have sent chills through the world-leading US research community.
When conservative talk-show host Michael Savage volunteered in an interview with the now president-elect to take over the National Institutes of Health, which spends about $32 billion (£25.5 billion) a year on research, Mr Trump said that it would be a good idea.
“You would get common sense if that were the case…because I hear so much about the NIH, and it’s terrible,” explained Mr Trump of perhaps the most admired science organisation in the world.
His determination to tear up the Paris agreement on climate change, branded a Chinese “hoax” designed to kill US manufacturing, has also been cited as evidence of his anti-science outlook.
