US election

Presidentelect Joe Biden has a lot of repair work to do on America, much of which will be difficult, if not impossible, if Senate Republicans are bent on obstructing him. There’s one area, though, where he could unravel a lot of Trump Administration damage fairly quickly and easily: Biden can bring science back to Washington.

President Donald Trump has done the country’s health and welfare a tremendous disservice by insulting and undermining scientists and the work they do. And he’s done it in a particularly pernicious way by sometimes embracing good science, sometimes championing bad science and sometimes rejecting scientific facts altogether.

Hundreds of scientists and researchers have fled the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Agriculture during this Administration after seeing policies based on sound science reversed, weakened, tinkered with, ignored and derided. Biden could begin reversing this maceration of science by putting up a ‘‘scientists wanted and respected’’ sign, something he’s already set in motion by making (evidencebased) calls for wearing face masks and by packing his Covid19 transition advisory group with highly respected doctors and infectious disease researchers.

Science is still science. Facts are still facts. Noone is going to fall off the edge of the Earth if they sail far enough west, and rejecting face masks isn’t going to protect anyone from Covid19. And soon, but not soon enough, the White House is going to embrace science and facts again.