The lesson here: Even when speech is stupid and inconvenient it is unethical to censor it.

The 2025 Breakthrough Prize ceremony, sometimes called the “Oscars of Science,” was attended by many of Silicon Valley’s major players, including Jeff Bezos. The event had comic actor Seth Rogen as its host: that was ethics dunce move #1. Rogen is only slightly less Trump Deranged than Robert DeNiro, and, though a talented performer, is no more astute in political and governmental matters than the ladies of “The View,” and just as biased. What did organizers think Rogen was going to say while having an open mic all night during a full Trump-hate freakout?

So, predictably, Rogen at one point blathered out, according to The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s amazing that others in this room underwrote electing a man who, in the last week, single-handedly destroyed all of American science. It’s amazing how much good science you can destroy with $320 million and R.F.K. Jr. very fast.” Literally nobody except Rogen knows what the $320 million refers to; current guesses range from the $316 million worth of illegal cannabis that was recently seized in California, the three-year deadline in Armenia’s Civil Code that could derail a $331 million investment arbitration in Rasia FZE and Joseph K. Borkowski v. Republic of Armenia, or perhaps the Toronto Blue Jays giving a stunning $325 million signing bonus to star first baseman Vlad Guerrero. Nonetheless, when the video of the event was aired on YouTube, Rogen’s stupid remarks had been snipped from the proceedings.

Absurdly, the Breakthrough Prize claims that the cuts were made because of time constraints. Suuuuure. (The New York Times described Rogen’s remarks as “jokes.” Boy, those were real knee-slappers!) Rogen said what he said, and the Breakthrough Prize owns it: they hired this asshole. I view the episode as one more bit of evidence pointing to how untrustworthy and unethical the scientific community has become. If they can’t be trusted to honestly represent a program without censoring parts that might cause them embarrassment, why would anyone assume that they won’t bury inconvenient research results as well?

As a side note, I suggest that in the future, the Breakthrough folks make sure that whomever they hire as an MC is briefed on what “science” means. Clearly, Seth Rogen had not been so briefed.