The Orwellian Moment. Science Facing New Obscurantism, Olivier Berné Answers
“The Orwellian Moment. Science Facing New Obscurantism” is the striking title of the book co-authored by Olivier Berné, Emmanuelle Perez Tisserant, and Tamara Ben Ari, prefaced by climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, which has just been released by Seuil. Olivier Berné, an astrophysicist, responsible for scientific projects with the James Webb Space Telescope and co-organizer of the Stand up for Science France movement, answers our questions.
What is the offensive of the Trump administration against science and scientists in the United States?
Image: Olivier Berné Astrophysicist and co-organizer of the Stand up for Science France collective
It has settled in for the long haul. It is not a series of isolated decisions, but a structured policy: budget cuts, job cuts in federal agencies, freezing or canceling thousands of research projects, ideological pressure on universities, banning certain words in funded projects, and the closure of databases and observatories.
There is also a strategy of delegitimization: presenting scientists as partisans, biased, disconnected from “common sense” or the interests of the country. What is visible is…
