What happens when politics turns against knowledge? William Haseltine reflects on the shifting global centers of science — from Europe to the U.S., and now to China. He warns that America’s current political decisions are not only undermining its universities but threatening its future as a leader in innovation. Here’s his perspective:
When Politics Turns Against Knowledge
Corinne Flick:
Do you think there will be a transition from the US either back to Europe or maybe to China? Or do you think the US has so much energy and capacity to innovate that even if other countries catch up, the US will always be one of the major players?
William Haseltine:
Well, the first thing I would say is don’t underestimate the power of politics to destroy a country. Germany is a great example. Venezuela is a contemporary example. You’re going to have countries that seem to have many advantages, and then the politics can utterly destroy them. I’m old enough to have lived through parts of the Second World War. And what happened there? Let me just take a field of science, not the whole.
When I was a young student, the center of science was still Europe, Germany, France, England, and Italy. But exactly when I was starting to look for postgraduate studies in about 1970/71 is that balance began to shift because the destruction of Europe meant many of the great brains came over to America and started building careers and teaching students. And I’m the scientific grandson of people like Renato del Becco, who came from Italy, along with a whole number of people. Fermi came from Italy. There were people who came from Germany and France as refugees, and that seeded the American intellectual revolution. And because the conditions there were so dramatic, they changed us. And today, Europe is definitely second to the United States in science and technology. The same is about to happen with the United States and China. We have trained generations of Chinese students who’ve returned. And when I look at the scientific literature, whether it’s material science, biology, computational science, or space science, the Chinese are doing exactly as well as we are, in some cases even better, than the United States. We, with our current administration, are in the process of smashing the whole thing, for no good reason that I can see, other than people want to smash it for other reasons, for political reasons. For example, just yesterday, Harvard, $2 billion of government grants were shut up from Harvard. $2 billion, okay? And that has happened across universities. And they are requiring, to get the money back. This is an unbelievable control of education, of all sorts of things. When you look at the list of things they’re demanding of American universities, it is not different from what the Third Reich wanted from their universities. It’s almost the same thing. It’s almost like they copy the instructions. That is a recipe for destruction. It is not even a natural evolution unless you call political vicissitudes a natural part of humanity. So, I think that if I’m optimistic, which I am about human knowledge, it has gone from Europe to America, and now it’s on its way to China. Now, that doesn’t mean that Europe is zero. Europe is a very strong scientific center, and there are many good places. America may remain, but it won’t be the heartbeat of the future of technology unless we change what’s happening right now. But I don’t see any real movement to change that right now. I see a process of destruction. Either you could say it was a natural course, but it’s certainly accelerated by politics. Happened between Europe and America, and now it’s happening between America and China. So America is not destined on its present course to be the preeminent leader in science. Right now, we’re equal with China, but that’s about it. This is my view. It may not be everybody’s view.
William Haseltine:
Well, the first thing I would say is don’t underestimate the power of politics to destroy a country. Germany is a great example. Venezuela is a contemporary example. You’re going to have countries that seem to have many advantages, and then the politics can utterly destroy them. I’m old enough to have lived through parts of the Second World War. And what happened there? Let me just take a field of science, not the whole.
When I was a young student, the center of science was still Europe, Germany, France, England, and Italy. But exactly when I was starting to look for postgraduate studies in about 1970/71 is that balance began to shift because the destruction of Europe meant many of the great brains came over to America and started building careers and teaching students. And I’m the scientific grandson of people like Renato del Becco, who came from Italy, along with a whole number of people. Fermi came from Italy. There were people who came from Germany and France as refugees, and that seeded the American intellectual revolution. And because the conditions there were so dramatic, they changed us. And today, Europe is definitely second to the United States in science and technology. The same is about to happen with the United States and China. We have trained generations of Chinese students who’ve returned. And when I look at the scientific literature, whether it’s material science, biology, computational science, or space science, the Chinese are doing exactly as well as we are, in some cases even better, than the United States. We, with our current administration, are in the process of smashing the whole thing, for no good reason that I can see, other than people want to smash it for other reasons, for political reasons. For example, just yesterday, Harvard, $2 billion of government grants were shut up from Harvard. $2 billion, okay? And that has happened across universities. And they are requiring, to get the money back. This is an unbelievable control of education, of all sorts of things. When you look at the list of things they’re demanding of American universities, it is not different from what the Third Reich wanted from their universities. It’s almost the same thing. It’s almost like they copy the instructions. That is a recipe for destruction. It is not even a natural evolution unless you call political vicissitudes a natural part of humanity. So, I think that if I’m optimistic, which I am about human knowledge, it has gone from Europe to America, and now it’s on its way to China. Now, that doesn’t mean that Europe is zero. Europe is a very strong scientific center, and there are many good places. America may remain, but it won’t be the heartbeat of the future of technology unless we change what’s happening right now. But I don’t see any real movement to change that right now. I see a process of destruction. Either you could say it was a natural course, but it’s certainly accelerated by politics. Happened between Europe and America, and now it’s happening between America and China. So America is not destined on its present course to be the preeminent leader in science. Right now, we’re equal with China, but that’s about it. This is my view. It may not be everybody’s view.
Corinne Flick:
Times of transition in every aspect, no?
William Haseltine:
Who would have imagined that things would be like this? For example, the NIH budget, the major research budget, is dramatically cut. Cutting the overhead means that universities and colleges can’t build new buildings. For anybody who’s in real estate, it’s very simple. When I wanted to build a new building as a university professor, I would get a donation for 20% of the cost. And then I would take a loan for 80%. The loan was guaranteed by the overhead that scientists who would fill the building would get from the government. You don’t get the overhead, you don’t get the building. Construction across the United States in new medical, biomedical, and other scientific research has stopped. It just stopped. It’s as if they pulled the plug overnight. And their buildings, I visited sites in Houston where their building is half finished and have stopped.
Corinne Flick:
Like a light switch.
William Haseltine:
Like a light switch. What do you want a bank to do? Loan you money with no collateral, no ability to repay. They won’t do it. You know that, so that stopped scientific progress across the country. And taking billions of dollars of government funding from universities. Now, I have to say this was not without warning. I used to teach a course on the sociology of science and social issues at Harvard. One of the things that people thought a lot about in the 30s and 50s was how much universities should be dependent on the government in their intellectual pursuit. They argue that it’s very dangerous to do that because if you’re dependent on the government, you’re dependent on politics. And we forgot that. I remembered it because I’m old enough to recall people who wrote books, such as “The Social Function of Science”. J.D. Bernal and other people wrote about that. And they wrote about the dangers, and we forgot about it. Oh, governments are always going to be there, giving us a slow jest and letting us do what we want. Well, guess what? Not this government in the US. And will other governments do the same? Maybe yes, maybe no.