Something familiar …

Spreading propaganda that science is nothing more than a politicized tool of the pointy-headed elite. Elevating unqualified people to policymaking authority because they parrot dogma, not because they know what they’re talking about. Cronyism influencing decision-making, with possible dire consequences for public health. Vilifying scientists who refuse to hew to the party line.

This sounds so familiar.

This is what happened in Soviet Russia. Joseph Stalin installed Trofim Lysenko as director of biological policy. Lysenko faked genetic data to conform to Marxist ideology that socialism would create a new selfless proletariat. Geneticists who disagreed were imprisoned, “disappeared,” and executed, until crop failures and starvation forced Lysenko’s removal in 1965.

Nowadays we have anti-environmentalism fomented by climate-denier EPA chief Scott Pruitt, fossil-fuel companies, and conservative think-tanks and media. We have Sen. Tom Cotton proudly proclaiming the dismantling of “harmful” rules designed to protect our waterways. We have Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos belonging to a church espousing that “all scientific theories [should] be subject to Scripture.” We have pressure exerted by Pruitt’s minions on science advisory board chair Deborah Swackhamer to get her to fall in with approved talking points and to “adjust” her testimony before Congress in accordance.

If Lenin didn’t invent the term “politically correct,” the Soviets sure knew what to do with it. We in the U.S. are not at the point where we “disappear” dissidents—yet—but otherwise, to quote the immortal Yogi Berra: It’s like déjà vu all over again.

ANITA SCHNEE

Fayetteville