One of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” authors said in a recent interview that the report is based fully on “sound,” “advanced” and “fundamental” science. Naturally, being deeply in favor of all those things, I spent a bit of time reading and rereading the manifesto’s science-related parts. And I have a couple of thoughts about that claim of scientific rigor.

First, the most important “scientific topics” discussed are energy sources (drill, baby, drill), climate change (unlikely to be real, and certainly not human-caused), gender and identity (only boy or girl, with the right fleshy bits), family (man-woman-child: period), and human reproduction (at all costs, even the mother’s life). In other words, their science arguments only serve as lipstick to gussy up recycled cultural grievances, hiding behind the noble intention of prescribing what they know to be best for the country.

Second, their definition of “sound,” “advanced” and “fundamental” science turns out to have nothing to do with science or scientific method as it is generally understood: Rather, they ground their scientific conclusions in a set of so-called pre-existing facts that arise from their fundamental belief system rather than with rigorous scientific study and testing. I agree with their insistence that great science must be encouraged and employed across all social and political arenas, but their description of what that would look like is antithetical to a science-based perspective. However, it is fully consistent with the peculiar U.S.-based Christianist worldview we are used to hearing from this group.

This is hardly a novel conflict, as it has played out in battle after battle over the centuries, though nowhere more intensely than in the U.S. For example, we’re coming up on the 100-year anniversary of the “Scopes Monkey Trial” in Dayton, Tennessee, in which a high school teacher was accused of breaking a state law that forbade the teaching of evolution in a public school. It was clear he broke the law, but both sides acknowledged that the trial had much higher stakes: It was nothing less than a battle over whether religion or science should drive American life. (I recommend the recent book “Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation” by Brenda Wineapple for an original look back at this pivotal event, the characters involved and the continued after-effects).

In some ways, we are still litigating the Scopes trial, at least on the surface. Much like the language of William Jennings Brian in Dayton a century ago, sections of the report drip with contempt for current institutions (and a few deeply hated individuals). Consider these quotes from Project 2025’s chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS):

“HHS must return to serving the health and well-being of all Americans at all stages of life instead of using social engineering that leaves us sicker, poorer, and more divided.” (Stop with the icky LGBTQ stuff, already!)

“COVID-19 exposed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is perhaps the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government.” (How dare anyone try to control a pandemic by inconveniencing us!)

“Despite its popular image as a benign science agency, NIH (National Institutes of Health), was responsible for paying for research in aborted baby body parts, human animal chimera experiments, and gain-of-function viral research that may have been responsible for COVID-19.” (Baby-killers one and all, and probably the inventors of SARS CoV-2! Especially Tony Fauci!)

In these accusations, truth and nuance are beside the point. These people and organizations are to be condemned and restructured (or destroyed) simply for daring to do real science-based work for the greater good but which also goes against the authors’ fundamental beliefs.

To its credit, and despite the grim assessment and contemptuous tone, Project 2025 does make its underlying belief structure clear by occasionally slipping into theological language (e.g., at one point asking how CDC decides whether balancing safety vs. saving souls is the right course in shutting down public events amid the COVID crisis). I certainly won’t argue with their right to their beliefs. But those beliefs are not the true threat to our democracy. Rather, it is the assertion that they can impose their beliefs on the rest of us, backed by good science as well as their god. That anti-scientific and anti-democratic effort cannot go unchallenged.

Fintan Steele is an ex-Benedictine monk and priest with a Ph.D. in biology/genetics. He spent most of his life in science communications, including scientific publishing and, most recently, for biopharma and academic centers. He and his husband live in Hygiene. Email: fsteele1@me.com.