U.S. scientists fear the worst under Trump's presidency

PanARMENIAN.Net - From the fight against climate change to dwindling budgets for research, the U.S. scientific community fears the worst under Donald Trump, seen by many as the most hostile to science of any American president in history, AFP reports.

Trump will be "the first anti-science president we have ever had," warned Michael Lubell, director of public affairs for the American Physical Society in Washington, in the British journal Nature.

"The consequences are going to be very, very severe."

Meanwhile, the vice president-elect, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, is an ultraconservative and a creationist who has rejected Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, the foundation of modern biology.

"There's a fear that the scientific infrastructure in the U.S. is going to be on its knees," said Robin Bell, a geophysicist at Columbia University and incoming president-elect of the American Geophysical Union.

"Everything from funding to being able to attract the global leaders we need to do basic science research."

A key worry is how the New York billionaire declared climate change to be "hoax" orchestrated by the Chinese, and vowed to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, AFP says.