What is the epistemic crisis?

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What is the epistemic crisis?

The phrase “epistemic crisis” refers to a perceived breakdown in the shared processes by which societies determine what is true. Writers who use the term argue that citizens no longer agree on (1) which institutions are trustworthy, (2) what counts as evidence, or (3) who qualifies as an expert. The result is a chronic contest over basic facts rather than over values or policy preferences [4][6][7][10].

Key diagnostic signals include:

Collapsing confidence in federal government [3] and in the news media [14][18]. Falling trust in scientists despite historically high approval a decade ago [5]. Empirical findings that many published scientific claims, especially in psychology, fail to replicate [2][13]. Experimental evidence that overt politicization of neutral bodies (e.g., public-health agencies) erodes confidence even among ideological allies [1].

RAND’s 2018 study labels the same pattern “Truth Decay,” emphasising the blurred line between opinion and fact and the “declining trust in formerly respected sources of factual information” [4].

What is causing it?

Most authors cite an interaction of structural, technological, and institutional failures rather than a single villain.

1. Politicization of expert bodies

When agencies or professional associations take overt positions on contested political questions, public trust falls sharply [1][20].

1. Incentive problems inside knowledge-producing fields

The replication crisis revealed that academic career incentives reward novel, attention-grabbing findings more than careful verification, leading to a high false-positive rate [2][13].

1. Media transformation

  The collapse of the advertising model and the rise of social platforms push news outlets toward speed, narrative cohesion, and audience segmentation, amplifying errors and groupthink [12][18][19].

1. Partisan filtering and motivated reasoning

  Long-running Pew series show that trust in government and in scientists is now heavily conditioned on party identity [3][5]. RAND notes that partisan-biased processing of information accelerates once common factual baselines erode [4].

1. Elite signalling and perceived hypocrisy

  Essays by Kling, Silver, Yglesias, and others argue that visible failures by highly credentialed decision-makers have created a “credibility deficit” that generalises from one domain (e.g., finance) to many others [6][8][9][15].

Although most sources agree on the core mechanisms, they disagree on emphasis: Boston Review [16] stresses that “fake-news panic” is exaggerated, whereas Slow Boring [15] argues elite misinformation is still underrated; Sam Harris focuses on moral tribalism [11]; Arnold Kling sees institutions captured by “insiders” who ignore feedback [6].

Examples of elite failure that fuelled the crisis

(The list reflects events repeatedly cited in the sources; not every essay mentions every item.)

• Replication crisis in psychology and social science – high-profile findings failed to reproduce when tested by the Open Science Collaboration [2][13].

• COVID-19 communication reversals – shifting guidance on masking, school closures, and lab-leak plausibility are cited as emblematic of politicized expertise [1][6][15].

• Financial-crisis risk modelling – “expert” assurances before 2008 collapsed rapidly, illustrating misaligned incentives in economic forecasting [8][9].

• Media misreports and narrative lock-ins – Jesse Singal’s plane-crash example shows journalists privileging rapid consensus over accuracy [17]; Economist and Free Press pieces on NYT and NPR describe internal cultures that discouraged dissenting facts [18][19].

• Intelligence claims on Iraqi WMDs (frequently invoked in commentary though not empirically analysed in these particular sources) serve as an early, vivid instance of bipartisan expert failure, reinforcing later scepticism [8][15].

Public-discourse timeline

2015 – “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science” finds only ~36 % of 100 landmark studies replicate, launching mainstream attention to the replication crisis [2].

2016-2017 – Post-election debates over “fake news” and filter bubbles surface; RAND begins drafting Truth Decay framework, published in 2018 [4].

2018 – Truth Decay report formalises concern about declining trust and factual fragmentation [4].

2020-2021 – Pandemic intensifies scrutiny of public-health messaging; Substack boom provides alternative venues for media criticism (Kling [6], Conspicuous Cognition [7][8], Sam Kahn [10]).

2023 – Pew documents a ten-point drop (since 2020) in Americans who say scientists “care about the public” [5].

2024 – Research Square experiment shows politicized cues can erode trust even among ideological allies, suggesting worsening polarisation of epistemic authority [1]. Additional op-eds in Washington Post [14] and essays by Nate Silver [9] and others frame the crisis as a central election-year issue.

Summary

Across surveys, experiments, and commentary, the “epistemic crisis” is diagnosed as a loss of shared mechanisms for determining truth. Causes include politicization, perverse incentives within science and media, technological change, and conspicuous elite failures. While authors disagree on which factor weighs most, they converge on the conclusion that rebuilding credible institutions—and the incentives that govern them—is essential if public discourse is to regain a stable factual foundation.

Sources

1. Politicization Undermines Trust in Institutions, Even Among the Ideologically Aligned Public – Research Square (2024 pre-print; Empirical research)
2. Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science – Science (2015 peer-reviewed replication study)
3. Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 – Pew Research Center (Long-running survey report)
4. Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life – RAND Corporation (2018 research report / policy study)
5. Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline – Pew Research Center (2023 survey report)
6. An Epistemic Crisis? – In My Tribe (Substack) (Opinion / Essay)
7. America’s Epistemological Crisis – Conspicuous Cognition (Commentary essay)
8. Elite Failures and Populist Backlash – Conspicuous Cognition (Commentary essay)
9. The Expert Class Is Failing, and So Is Biden’s Presidency – Silver Bulletin (Substack) (Opinion / Essay)
10. It’s the Epistemology, Stupid – Sam Kahn (Substack) (Opinion / Essay)
11. The Reckoning – Sam Harris (Substack) (Opinion / Essay)
12. Why the Media Moves in Unison – Persuasion (Opinion / Essay)
13. 75 % of Psychology Claims Are False – Unsafe Science (Substack) (Commentary / Replication-crisis analysis)
14. The Hard Truth: Americans Don’t Trust the News Media – The Washington Post (2024 Opinion / Op-Ed)
15. Elite Misinformation Is an Underrated Problem – Slow Boring (Opinion / Essay)
16. The Fake News About Fake News – Boston Review (Long-form analysis / Essay)
17. How to Know Who to Trust, Potomac Plane Crash Edition – Jesse Singal (Substack) (Commentary / Media criticism)
18. When the New York Times Lost Its Way – 1843 Magazine (The Economist) (Magazine feature)
19. I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust – The Free Press (First-person essay / Media criticism)
20. Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? – Steve Stewart-Williams (Substack) (Commentary essay)

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Question

What is the epistemic crisis? What is the cause of the epistemic crisis? What are some examples of elite failure the caused the epistemic crisis?