Within two weeks of Trump's election on Nov. 23, the leaders of our most prestigious scientific, engineering and academic organizations sent him a letter echoing the 75-year-old science policy. They reminded him that solutions to the challenges he will face as president — "protecting national and energy security, to ensuring U.S. economic competitiveness, curing diseases, and responding to natural disasters" — will come from evidence-based science. They said that "approximately half of U.S. economic growth over the last 50 years" resulted from investments in science, technology and innovation. They emphasized that to "maintain America's global leadership" requires building "on our strong history of federal support for innovation, entrepreneurship and science and technology." If Trump read this letter, it certainly did not dissuade him from gutting nonmilitary federal science programs.