Having grown up in suburban Philadelphia, Neil Shubin had never even gone overnight camping before taking his first field trip to Greenland as a young paleontologist. But living in tents in the Arctic was a prerequisite for a career that has included a slew of fossil discoveries, including Tiktaalik, an extinct, 375-million-year-old lobe-finned fish with features found in today’s four-legged animals.
“That was probably more existential than most learning experiences,” he says about enduring the gale-force winds and biting cold. “But you learn on the job.”
Thirty-five years later, Shubin is facing chill winds of another kind as he begins a 5-year term as the 22nd president of the 163-year-old National Academy of Sciences (NAS). He’s also chair of its working arm, the National Research Council (NRC), which each year churns out some 200 reports for policymakers and the public on topics ranging from genetics to galaxy formation. In his new role Shubin must square off against hostile congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump’s administration, which has accused the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) of bias and talked about cutting off all government funding to the organization, which relies heavily on federal dollars to carry out its work.
Shubin, former administrator and longtime faculty member at the University of Chicago, says he plans to weather this political storm by sticking to NASEM’s mandate from Congress to be “an objective, nonpartisan source of evidence-based advice.” He spoke with ScienceInsider about the current political landscape, the state of U.S. science, and the challenges facing NASEM.
Here are excerpts from that interview, which took place on 30 June, 1 day before he took up the reins from geophysicist Marcia McNutt (former editor-in-chief of Science).
Q: Last year, as your name was being put forward as NAS president, McNutt was carrying out a major restructuring of NRC, including staff layoffs, in response to reduced government support. Did she talk with you?
A: I was not part of any decisions made before my term began. I wasn’t even aware of the restructuring. … I haven’t been heavily involved with the NRC at all, so one of the first things on my agenda will be getting to know the staff, listening to their concerns as well as conveying my values.
Q: The restructuring was also designed to make NRC more nimble, including more quick-turnaround reports and other alternatives to its traditional consensus studies, which can take more than 2 years. What’s your take on its initial impact?
A: I think eliminating several boards and reducing the number of divisions was done with an eye toward greater [financial] sustainability, which is important. But retaining the capacity to offer advice in many different areas after you’ve downscaled is a problem we need to solve. … If somebody comes to us with a specific question, we can scale up very quickly, tap leaders of the field, and come up with a response. But the real challenge is what I call horizon scanning. Will we still be able to tell policymakers what’s next?
Q: Do you anticipate additional restructuring and layoffs?
A: We have lots of scenarios based on what Congress might do [with annual appropriations], but the situation is very labile. And restructuring is an ongoing process. It’s like evolution, right? You evolve, you adapt, you analyze, and then adapt again.
Q: What do you think about Trump’s advocacy of “gold-standard science” at every federal agency?
A: Gold-standard science is something we’ve all been striving for for decades, if not for centuries. So things like reproducibility, reliability, and scientific integrity are nothing new. But I would not want to see science being used as the cudgel [to carry out the president’s policies], and I am worried that it is being used in that way.
Q: Can you give me an example?
A: No comment. But it’s not that I’m not willing to answer your question. In fact, I want to dive into what’s been happening to grants that have been terminated. Rather, it’s more because of a lack of data, and I don’t want to discuss things without data.
Q: How much advocacy should NASEM do on specific policy issues? Or should it avoid wading into political controversy?
A: I think we should probably be doing more. In particular, when it really impacts the [research] enterprise itself, we have to be out there. It’s a fine line, but I think certain things require statements, particularly when it comes to the ability to provide independent nonpartisan advice.
Q: Is there anything you learned in discovering an important transition fossil that applies to being NAS president?
A: There’s a lot, actually. It took us 6 years of failure to find those fossils. Over multiple expeditions we came home with nothing to show for ourselves. But we had made a long-term bet, and we just stuck with it. Another thing I learned is the importance of developing a team that is resilient, holding them together, keeping their focus on the task, and reminding them why you’re there and why it’s important.