6 things to know about Jay Bhattacharya, Trump's pick to lead the National Institutes of Health

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Friday, December 06, 2024

Delp Hall houses many faculty offices on the campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. | Wikimedia Commons/Brother Atticus https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillsdale_College_Delp_Hall.JPG

Founding fellow at Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom

In 2021, the Michigan-based Christian liberal arts institution Hillsdale College released a statement announcing the establishment of its new Academy for Science and Freedom at its Washington, D.C. campus.

Its stated purpose is to "educate the American people about the free exchange of scientific ideas and the proper relationship between freedom and science in the pursuit of truth" at a time when "political influence and media narrative have dangerously abridged free scientific inquiry, resulting in grave abuses of the liberty promised to American citizens by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States."

Bhattacharya was one of three fellows whose work the academy would feature.

"Science depends on the freedom of scientists to challenge established dogma with arguments and data," Bhattacharya said in response to the academy's founding. "It cannot function when a small cartel of government scientists, who control a lion's share of financial support for scientific activity even by private actors, can dictate scientific conclusions at odds with the facts as has happened during the pandemic."

"The work of the Academy for Science and Freedom will be to reform the funding and function of science so that scientists can be free to do science again and thereby contribute to the flourishing of a free society," he added.

The Academy for Science and Freedom consists of "scientific workshops and conferences with in-residence scholars" along with "visiting scholar sabbatical opportunities, the publication of position papers, opinion pieces, books, and other written works in print and digital formats" as well as "media and government outreach, including conferences, panel discussions, interviews, and testimony."