You cannot 'restore' high scientific standards if they are already in place

President Trump’s executive order “Restoring Gold Standard Science” provides a directive to restore a higher standard for scientific research and discovery. Yet despite the concerns it raises, the very standards that it describes already exist and are widely applied.

Section one of the order describes why the administration believes that it is needed.  Some of it focuses on the responses to the COVID pandemic.  Many now agree that many facets of the response were off-base.  The reason...