Harvard is anti-science
The Trump administration has recently cut off Harvard University’s science funding, citing antisemitism, racially discriminatory admissions, and hiring practices. Harvard’s defense? Yes, we are antisemitic. Yes, we discriminate based on race. We have turned the humanities and social science departments into indoctrination centers. But we are still doing good, hard science. Don’t cut our science funding!
Sadly, the evidence shows Harvard has also wrecked the hard sciences.
Let’s first consider the medical sciences. Harvard University President Alan Garber and Harvard professor of psychology Steven Pinker, the latter in a 4,000-word New York Times op-ed, cited Harvard’s work on a cure for Alzheimer’s disease as one of Harvard’s main achievements. But Science journalist Charles Piller, in his book Doctored, showed that Harvard researchers, leaders of the so-called “Amyloid Mafia” (scientists who believe that amyloid plaques are the leading cause of Alzheimer’s disease), have prevented all other hypotheses from being tested, thereby delaying finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.
Garber also cited a Breakthrough Prize awarded to a Harvard scientist for his work on GLP-1-based drugs used to treat obesity and diabetes, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, as evidence of Harvard’s recent medical contributions.