What is it about?
Science’ reproducibility crisis - whereby in many fields scientific results cannot be replicated, has become a political and industrial battleground. Especially in the US, conservatives and corporate interests use the crisis to weaken regulations - e.g. on on health and the environmental, while their opponent - in order to defend science - deny the existence of even a reproducibility crisis. This right-left divide in the reading of the science’s present predicaments is unhelpful and dangerous to the survival of science itself. An alternative reading of the crisis would suggest that structural contradictions have emerged in modern science, and that addressing these should be the focus of our attention.
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Why is it important?
While the strategizing of corporations to deny science - when this runs counter to their interests - is expected and is part of a long-term strategy, the reaction of the scientific community has been to some extent less predictable. At present this reaction appears unhelpfully defensive or denialist.
Perspectives
The scientific community and institutions should react to the crisis rather then denying its existence. Also the community should not assimilate those who insist on the need to take the crisis seriously to 'enemies of science'. The industrial role of science and the operation of science within the lobbying system need our urgent attention. It would be a disgrace if the present science war – mostly evident in the US – were to lead to the same partisan polarization in the rest of the planet, thus entrenching conservatives and progressives under the crisis/no-crisis banners.
Professor Andrea Saltelli
University Pompeo Fabra, Barcelona School of Management
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This page is a summary of: Why science’s crisis should not become a political battling ground, Futures, July 2018, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2018.07.006.
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