If China finally eclipses the United States as the world's preeminent scientific superpower, there won't be an official announcement. Neither will there necessarily be a dramatic Promethean demonstration, a bomb flash in the desert, a satellite beeping overhead, a moon landing. It will be a quiet moment, observed by a small, specialized subset of scientists who have forsaken the study of the stars, animals, and plants in favor of a more navel-gazing subject: the practice of science itself. This moment may now be at hand. American science has been the envy of the planet since the Second World War at least, but it has recently gone into decline. After President Trump took office last year, his administration started vandalizing the country's scientific institutions, suspending research grants in bulk and putting entire lines of cutting-edge research on ice. In August, Trump's Department of Health and Human Services canceled $500 million in mRNA-vaccine research, less than two years...
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