How politicians screw up science

Here’s what happens when you put politicians in charge of science, according to Science News July 10, 2026.  Soviet scientists in the 1930s knew what could happen if they bucked the party line: denunciation, firing and banishment from the scientific establishment, even imprisonment and death. Political reprisals against those who opposed the views of dictator Joseph Stalin and his followers — and the dubious science they endorsed — led to the starvation of millions, as well as to decades of lost progress in fields from agriculture to molecular biology.  Now, scientists are warning that history could repeat itself — but in the United States.