Australia's Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has compared US President Donald Trump's move to censor environmental data with former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's control of science in the USSR.
Speaking at a Chief Scientists' roundtable discussion at the Australian National University on Monday, Dr Finkel made his comments saying he was "going off topic" as "science is literally under attack".
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Dr Finkel said: "The Trump administration has mandated that scientific data published by the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] must undergo review by political appointees before they can be published."
In the first week of his presidency Mr Trump's administration informed the EPA it could not send out press releases and no blog messages could be published. The EPA was also told "no new content can be placed on any website".
![Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has warned that Donald Trump is like Stalin when it comes to science.](/web/20170206054832im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/m/z/6/c/z/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu6f5w.png/1486357091553.jpg)
The Chief Scientist told an audience at the ANU's Crawford School of Public Policy that this political control was comparable to Stalin's promotion of Trofim Lysenko's ideas on genetics and evolution in the USSR from the 1920s.
Dr Finkel said: "It is reminiscent of the censorship exerted by political officers in the old Soviet Union. Every military commander there had a political officer second-guessing his decisions.
"Soviet agricultural science was held back for decades because of the ideology of Trofim Lysenko. Stalin loved Lysenko's conflation of science and Soviet philosophy and used his limitless power to ensure that Lysenko's unscientific ideas prevailed."
Dr Finkel said: "While Western scientists embraced evolution and genetics, Russian scientists who thought the same were sent to the gulag. Western crops flourished. Russian crops failed."
The Chief Scientist said there was no place for such political control of science. "Frank and fearless advice - no matter the views of the political commissars at the EPA," he said.
Dr Finkel said that he valued his independence and was grateful that no Australian prime minister or minister had ever told him what to say.
His comments came at the end of a short speech that focused on how he had been managing the review of the National Electricity Market.
He pointed out that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg could have asked an economist to chair the review, but had asked him.
He came to the role independently, apart from his love of electrons.
Dr Finkel said that he had been phoned at 11.40pm on October 6, 2016, after he'd had "one or two whiskys" when Mr Frydenberg requested he chair the review.
"But, but, but ... " was his first reaction, but a "tired" minister had already hung up. He agreed to take on the task the next morning.
Dr Finkel said there was urgent need to ensure science was at the centre of policy making.
He said that in government there were only 22 federal MPs with a background in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM); there is only one of 18 federal departmental heads; no COAG energy ministers; and no premiers.
The roundtable was addressed by the New Zealand chief scientific adviser, Peter Gluckman, and Britain's former chief scientist John Beddington.
The event was launched by the vice-chancellor of the Australian National University, Brian Schmidt, who lauded the role of the university, which was, in part to "fund ideas too dangerous to be funded outside the university".
Professor Schmidt, who is a supporter of the Science in Australia Gender Equity program, also lamented that "universities remain too male dominated".