In Episode 5 of The Week in Science, Scott Turner, Director of Science Programs at the National Association of Scholars, offers a timely critique of the growing media narrative around a so-called “Trump brain drain”—the claim that scientists are fleeing American institutions due to MAGA-led funding cuts. Turner says that what is actually driving scientists away isn’t political hostility to science but a realignment of funding priorities that scientists don’t like.
Despite fears of a brain drain, Turner notes that America still vastly outpaces every other country in research funding—even after proposed cuts. And while China is aggressively recruiting American scientists, those who take the bait will find little academic freedom in a tightly controlled, authoritarian system.
In short, Turner doesn’t take the panic over a brain drain all that seriously.
He then pivots to evolutionary biology, challenging the oft-repeated claim that humans and chimpanzees share 99 percent of their genetic material. That figure, he explains, has been overturned by recent analyses of the genomes of the great apes.
More importantly, the similarity of genomes doesn’t measure the massive functional differences—especially in cognition, language, and moral reasoning—between humans and chimps. Will museums rise to the challenge? Given the capture of elite institutions like the Smithsonian, it’ll be a close-run thing.
Watch the episode below or on YouTube:
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Image: “Aren’t these humans funny? Bryan the chimp at Monkey World in Dorset” by Ian Duffy on Flickr
“In short, Turner doesn’t take the panic over a brain drain all that seriously”
Anyone who believes you can cut the NSF budget by half and not have a brain drain, is just a fool.