Somewhere between a bad acid trip and a civics lesson written in crayon, the Trump administration has decided that the best way to manage American science is to fire it.

Not trim it. Not reform it. Not even insult it in the usual, ritualistic fashion. No—terminate it, effective immediately, like a disgruntled nightclub owner tossing out the band mid-song because the trumpet player looks suspiciously literate.

All 22 members of the U.S. National Science Board—gone. Erased with the bureaucratic elegance of a two-sentence email, the digital equivalent of a guillotine blade dropped by an intern.

What kind of impulse does this?