What Trump’s “Gold Standard” Science Order Really Means
Trump’s new executive order revives old tactics to sideline research and silence dissent.
On May 23, the Trump administration released a new executive order titled Restoring Gold Standard Science. On the surface, it promises greater rigor, accountability, and transparency in government science. But scratch beneath the surface, and the order reveals a blueprint for politicizing federal science and excluding research that doesn’t align with a partisan agenda. Here’s what scientists and the public need to understand.
1. The Manufactured Crisis: Research Misconduct and Reproducibility
The executive order opens with a warning about rising research misconduct and a reproducibility crisis, framing these as urgent justifications for sweeping changes to federal research policy. But while concerns about reproducibility are real, the claim of a widespread crisis is not backed by evidence and framing it as such risks doing more harm than good.
A widely cited 2016 Nature survey found that more than 70% of researchers had failed to replicate someone else’s experiment, and more than half couldn’t reproduce their own results. But most scientists didn’t interpret this as a sign of fraud. Instead, they pointed to complex contributing factors, such as selective reporting, statistical variability, or insufficient methodological detail—challenges that reflect the iterative nature of science, rather than a breakdown in integrity.
As Daniele Fanelli argued in a 2018 PNAS article, failed replications should not be treated as systemic failure. They are an expected part of scientific progress. Overemphasizing isolated replication failures, particularly in high-profile fields such as psychology or cancer biology, can distort public understanding and exaggerate the scope of the issue. Worse, it can justify overreaching policies that undermine trust in science or impose rigid constraints ill-suited to diverse research contexts.
Efforts to improve reproducibility through better training, data practices, and incentives are important. But the executive order’s narrative of a crisis appears designed less to strengthen science and more to create a pretext for politically driven reforms. It shifts attention from real, nuanced problems to a manufactured emergency, paving the way for policies that threaten scientific independence.
2. The Transparency Trap: Repackaging the "Secret Science" Rule
One of the most concerning elements of the order is its call for agencies to publicly release "data, analyses, and conclusions" that inform major policies. At first glance, this may seem like a reasonable request. After all, transparency is a hallmark of good science. But the language in the EO closely resembles the Environmental Protection Agency’s controversial "Secret Science" rule from Trump’s first term.
That rule sought to disqualify any scientific study whose underlying data couldn’t be made fully public, even if the data involved confidential health records or proprietary information. It would have excluded foundational public health research from regulatory decisions, especially large epidemiological studies that rely on protected medical data. This was never about transparency—it was about creating a pretext to dismiss inconvenient science.
Critics of the rule included the National Academies of Sciences, the American Lung Association, and thousands of scientists who submitted comments opposing the proposal. The rule was eventually struck down in court, but the executive order brings back its core mechanism. It sets the stage for sidelining science not because it lacks merit, but because it doesn’t meet arbitrary, politically driven disclosure standards.
3. Rolling Back Real Protections for Scientific Integrity
The Biden administration made significant progress on strengthening scientific integrity across federal agencies. In 2021, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a government-wide framework that required each agency to update its scientific integrity policies, ensure protections for whistleblowers, and establish avenues for scientists to dissent without fear of retaliation.
Trump’s new order revokes that framework. In doing so, it leaves agencies with either outdated guidance or no clear standards at all. Many of the earlier scientific integrity policies lacked clear processes to submit potential scientific integrity violations, procedures for dissenting scientific opinions, or protections for scientists facing political retaliation. This was not true of all past scientific integrity policies, many of which were strong.
The Biden-era guidance was designed as a step on a path to continue iterating and strengthening scientific integrity. Undoing it now not only weakens oversight but sends a chilling message: that political convenience, not scientific independence, will govern how federal research is used.
4. The DEI Smokescreen: A Culture-War Distraction
Another telling feature of the executive order is its attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in science. It implies that attention to DEI undermines scientific objectivity and credibility. However, this argument is itself a political, not a scientific, one.
DEI efforts aim to ensure that the best science considers underserved communities and that the scientific workforce reflects the communities that it ultimately serves. Undermining DEI doesn’t protect science; it blinds it. From medical trials that historically excluded women and minorities to climate policy that ignores vulnerable communities, failing to consider equity leads to worse outcomes and less relevant research. This section of the order is less about improving science and more about stoking a culture war.
5. The Bigger Picture: What Scientists Can Do Now
This executive order is not just a policy change—it’s a shift in philosophy. It prioritizes control over inquiry and political loyalty over evidence. But scientists are not powerless.
Scientists can take several steps to defend the integrity of their work and the broader scientific enterprise:
Engage in public comment processes on federal rules and guidance documents. Agencies are required to consider input, and organized scientific voices can influence outcomes.
Serve on federal advisory committees to ensure independent scientific input continues to inform policy. If you cannot serve on a federally sanctioned advisory committee, start your own independent advisory committee and provide advice to the government!
Speak out when science is misused or sidelined. Public communication, op-eds, and testimony matter.
Support legislation like the Scientific Integrity Act that would codify baseline protections and prevent future rollbacks.
This is not the first time science has been politicized. But every time, it has taken an active, vocal scientific community to push back. The so-called "gold standard" of science doesn’t need a new executive order. It needs public institutions that respect expertise, uphold transparency without undermining ethics or the law, and protect the scientific process from political interference.
We don’t need fool’s gold. We need the real thing.
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Not all equipment, reagents, cell lines, researchers abilities to conduct science or do statistics is equivalent. It's not surprising that not every scientist can duplicate another's research. There is also little reward in the effort to do so. Scientists are not awarded grants to duplicate the research of other's but rather to build on it.