Biden doesn’t get it

It has been a rough 2 weeks for the US science community. After 4 years of bludgeoning by the Trump administration, hope resurged a year ago as a new White House promised to value science. But there have been missteps, the most recent taking place on the heels of another blunder that many saw coming. Eric Lander, who just stepped down as President Biden’s science adviser and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), was a prominent research figure with a well-known record of bullying and callous actions. With the notable exception of the 500 Women Scientists organization, the scientific community was embarrassingly silent about Lander’s nomination. Not surprisingly, he is out of the White House because of the same behavioral issues. And yet, in another tone deaf move, the administration just named Francis Collins, the recently retired director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as Lander’s interim replacement as science adviser while asking Alondra Nelson, the OSTP’s deputy director for science and society and an experienced administrator and scholar, to temporarily direct OSTP. Apparently, Biden...