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Simply Science: Will American science rise from the ashes?

2026-02-18 · 19:17 UTC ·The Economist ·6 min read

Brief

American science is portrayed here as entering a consequential reset rather than a routine policy cycle. Writing from the 2026 AAAS meeting in Phoenix, Geoffrey Carr argues that the United States built an unparalleled research ecosystem after the second world war by coupling federal money to relative scientific autonomy, creating the network of national laboratories, universities and agencies that powered both military and civilian innovation. That settlement now looks unstable. The immediate threat was a proposed $30bn reduction in science funding from the Trump administration, partially blunted when Congress rejected the cuts shortly before the meeting, though with more prescriptive spending constraints. Carr’s deeper point is institutional: many scientists at AAAS believe public trust has eroded, leaving the research establishment politically exposed even as China narrows the gap. The piece closes by noting that scientific work continues amid the turmoil, highlighting exposomics and perovskite-based neuromorphic computing as examples of promising frontier research discussed at the conference.

Why it matters

The Economist’s 2026-02-18 Simply Science newsletter frames the AAAS meeting in Phoenix as a moment of crisis and possible renewal for the American research system.

Key details

  • At the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Phoenix, Arizona—the city’s first time hosting AAAS—scientists described US science as facing a political “rupture, not a transition,” with anxiety centered on a Trump administration seen as indifferent or hostile to parts of the research enterprise.
  • The article argues America’s science system—national labs, elite universities, and agencies such as NASA—was a deliberate post-second-world-war creation designed to turn wartime scientific success in radar and nuclear weapons into long-run civilian economic strength.
  • AAAS chief executive Sudip Parikh highlighted one concrete reprieve: Congress rejected $30bn in proposed science-budget cuts just nine days before the meeting began, though lawmakers also sought tighter instructions on how funds are spent.
  • A major concern raised at the meeting was legitimacy rather than only funding: participants argued scientists had grown detached from the public, so when the research establishment came under attack, many voters “shrugged their shoulders” instead of defending it.
  • Beyond science policy, the newsletter points to two technical areas featured at AAAS: exposomics, which studies how environmental exposures interact with genetics to cause disease, and perovskite-based neuromorphic computing, which uses perovskite crystals in hardware meant to mimic brain-like computation.
Cleaned source text

title: Simply Science: Will American science rise from the ashes?

author: The Economist

content_type: newsletter

publication: e.economist.com

published: 2026-02-18T13:17:52-06:00

source_url: gmail://19c7230129e266d0

word_count: 1304

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February 18th 2026 For subscribers

Simply Science

Illuminating insights, delivered weekly

Will American science rise from the ashes?

Geoffrey Carr

Senior editor

Phoenixes die in flames, but are then reborn. So the location of this year’s meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) struck me, on arrival, as a poignant, if unintended, piece of symbolism. Phoenix, Arizona had never before hosted the AAAS. It has done so now at a moment when many in the country’s scientific establishment fear their field is, indeed, undergoing immolation. What will emerge from the flames remains to be seen.

Viewed historically, America’s science establishment—a web of national laboratories, top-flight universities and government agencies such as NASA—is an extraordinary thing. Nothing like it has existed in the past and attempts by others (even including the Soviet Union during the Cold War) to emulate it have so far produced but pale imitations, though China is catching up fast. And it was no happenstance. It was a deliberate creation, inspired by the appliance of science to everything from radar to nuclear weapons that helped America and its allies win the second world war. The intention was both to continue this success and to extend it into the civilian economy.

For the scientists tasked with this mission the deal was, as one of the meeting’s speakers put it, “Give us the money and leave us alone, and we’ll give you the goods.” A sweet bargain which perhaps bred complacency. For, though science certainly did deliver the goods, there was anguished hand-wringing by participants in the meeting that its practitioners have lost touch with the people, and in doing so have lost their trust, as well. It was not so much that voters had chosen an administration which seems indifferent to much of science and actively hostile to the rest. That was a side-effect of Donald Trump’s election, not the reason for it. It was that when this abundant source of the country’s strength and prosperity was assaulted, most people seemed to shrug their shoulders.

Sudip Parikh, CEO of the AAAS, certainly recognises this, and that things will never be the same again. Quoting Mark Carney, he told me, “This is a rupture, not a transition.” But he says that it brings an opportunity to think about priorities, and to try to engage more with the people—who are, after all, supposed to be science’s beneficiaries. The one piece of good news is that, nine days before the meeting began, America’s Congress pushed back against the administration’s actions by rejecting $30bn of proposed cuts to the science budget. But even though Congressfolk also tried to tighten instructions about how the money is spent, Dr Parikh worries how that will work in practice. It does, though, show bipartisan political support for the country’s scientists and suggests that, though what rises from the ashes will surely have different plumage, it could still be a spectacular bird.

Meanwhile, along with the hand-wringing, the meeting still managed to put on some interesting sessions. I have reported on two of these. One is the emerging subject of exposomics, which some see as just a grandiose name for environmental health and others as an interesting new approach to understanding how the interaction between nature and nurture causes disease. The second is the use of crystals called perovskites to make the elements of neuromorphic computing, which attempts to mimic how brains work.

As always, please send any thoughts or questions to sciencenewsletter@economist.com.

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