What Is Science, and Why Don't We Trust It Anymore? | Dr. Rick Lindroth

In November 1944, President Roosevelt asked one question that would reshape the 20th century: how do we turn wartime science into a national engine for peacetime progress? In this opening lecture of a three-part Friday Night Lecture series, Dr. Rick Lindroth — Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Ecology Emeritus at UW–Madison and Distinguished Research Fellow at the S.L. Brown Foundation's Lumen Center — traces the origins of American science funding from Vannevar Bush's landmark report Science, the Endless Frontier to today's federal research landscape. Lindroth lays out what actually makes something "science," why basic research matters, and why public trust in science — once among the highest of any profession — has fractured sharply along political lines since 2020. Part one of "Can Science Be Trusted?"