Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama invited America’s Nobel Prize winners to the White House most years, to celebrate their achievements and thank them for their discoveries. This year, the American winners of Nobels in physics, chemistry, economics and physiology were lauded at the Swedish Embassy in Washington.

They received no invitation to meet President Trump.

The White House didn’t give a firm reason for this, using the president’s travel schedule as an excuse. But like scientists, we can hypothesize. Perhaps Mr. Trump, who has canceled the White House Science Fair, appointed a radio talk show host as the Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist and nobody at all as White House science adviser, isn’t big on research’s value to society.

The Nobel winners weren’t exactly beating down the White House door hoping to get in. The biophysicist Joachim Frank, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in microscopy, said he was “relieved” not to be visiting Mr. Trump. Referring to his fellow American laureates, he said, “I strongly believe that as thinking, intelligent people, they will have a similar attitude as I.”