Trump to appoint non-scientist as chief scientist of USDA

Scientists work here now, but Trump's new overseer

will probably make them all want to flee.

This is how corruption starts.

Donald Trump's expected appointment for under-secretary for research at the USDA will be a right-wing talk radio host with no scientific credentials, according to a new report from ProPublica. The expected appointee, Sam Clovis, worked as a political aide to Trump on his transition team, and was installed at the USDA in a temporary role soon after Trump took office, to be Trump's "eyes and ears" until a permanent USDA director was approved.

Clovis has no scientific background or credentials. As ProPublica explained, he was a talk radio host in Iowa who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2014. He majored in political science in college and studied business administration in graduate school, and has never published a scientific paper.

Now Trump is appointing Clovis to be Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics (REE) at the Department of Agriculture. This administrator is responsible for a large portfolio of research, both internal and external, conducted by and supported by the USDA, including NIFA, the National Institute for Food and Agriculture.

I've had several research grants supported by USDA's NIFA, through which my colleagues and I sequenced the genomes of many agriculturally important animals and plants. I've also collaborated with internal USDA scientists who work for the Agricultural Research Service, another branch of the USDA that will soon report to Sam Clovis. I've met many outstanding scientists, both inside and outside the USDA, through these projects.

Overseeing the USDA's research programs requires strong expertise in biological science. A non-scientist has no basis for deciding which research is going well, or what questions need further study, or which questions present the most promising avenues for research. A non-scientist is simply incompetent to choose among them–and I mean this in the literal sense of the word; i.e., not having the knowledge or training to do the job. (This does not mean that I think Sam Clovis is incompetent at other things; I don't know him and he might be very capable in other areas.) Among other problems, an non-scientist leader of a scientific agency will be incapable of using scientific expertise to set priorities, and instead can make up his own priorities. In the case of Sam Clovis, his history leads me to believe that his priorities will be based on his conservative political agenda.

The previous under secretary, Catherine Woteki, has a Ph.D. in human nutrition and was previously the dean of the school of agriculture at Iowa State University. The current Acting Under Secretary, Ann Bartuska, has a Ph.D. in ecology and has worked in many scientific positions, including high-level positions at the U.S. Forest Service and the Nature Conservancy.

Both Dr. Woteki and Dr. Bartuska could run circles around Sam Clovis on any of the scientific issues under the purview of the USDA's Under Secretary for Research. Nonetheless, Clovis will soon oversee thousands of scientists currently working at the USDA, despite the fact that he has no idea what they do. It is still possible that Trump will appoint someone else, or that the Senate will decline to confirm Clovis, but these possibilities seem unlikely.

When leaders are incompetent, they appoint people under them who are also incompetent. Trump's intention to appoint Sam Clovis as the chief scientist of the USDA isn't the first demonstration of his incompetence, and I don't expect it to be the last. What's most dangerous about this appointment (and others like it) is that incompetence enables and even encourages corruption, because the appointees don't understand or respect the mission of their own agencies. Instead, they follow their own agendas, whatever those might be.

The 2008 Farm Bill stipulated (section 7511) that the Under Secretary for REE must be chosen from

"distinguished scientists with specialized or significant experience in agricultural research, education, and economics."

Sam Clovis is not such a person, but Donald Trump just doesn't seem to care.