Ross Douthat

It seems like there are areas where there are just some sort of limitations on what scientific research can do with some of these conditions.

I mean, I guess I'm an optimist about that.

That's how science advances when we don't know.

So along with chronic diseases, another issue that you've been very focused on, at least in public commentary, is the replication crisis.

I think probably a lot of listeners don't know what the replication crisis is.

So tell me what it is and what you can do about it.

It's a disaster for everybody.

But what do you do about it?

You can't go around paying for the replication of hundreds of thousands of scientific papers, right?

It's an unsexy thing to say that you're doing.

Is that something the NIH is capable of doing?

You won't call it that.

No, I think second scientific revolution.

That was good marketing.

I'm on board.

Okay.

All right, I'm going to push us from reforms into political controversy.

And starting with something that you just said a few moments ago, which I thought was really interesting, that basically if you have a world where 75% of the public trusts scientific authorities and 25% of the public doesn't, it's 25% too many.

I think very clearly there's a big percentage, more than 25% of the country, that doesn't trust anything that is associated with the Trump administration generally and is very skeptical of public health efforts specifically.

So that is your problem, right?