The Orwellian Moment. Science Facing New Obscurantism is the shocking title of the book co-written by Olivier Berné, Emmanuelle Perez Tisserant, and Tamara Ben Ari, and prefaced by climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, which has just been released (Seuil). Olivier Berné, an astrophysicist, responsible for scientific projects with the James Webb Space Telescope and co-host of the Stand up for Science France movement, answers our questions.
What is the Trump administration’s offensive against science and scientists in the United States?
It has become entrenched. It is not a series of isolated decisions, but a structured policy: budget cuts, job cuts in federal agencies, freeze or cancellation of thousands of research projects, ideological pressure on universities, banning certain words in funded projects, and closure of databases and observatories.
There is also a strategy of delegitimization: portraying scientists as biased, partisan, disconnected from “common sense,” or the interests of the country. What is at stake is not…
