Epistemic Crisis: Difference between revisions

''Written by AI. Help improve this answer by adding to the sources section. When the sources section is updated this article will regenerate.''

'''What is the epistemic crisis?''' 

In contemporary U.​S.​ discourse the phrase “epistemic crisis” refers to a perceived breakdown in society’s ability to establish shared facts and to reward trustworthy expertise. Commentators argue that once‐reliable knowledge institutions—science, journalism, government statistics, policy analysis—now face widespread doubt, so citizens retreat to partisan or identity-based information tribes instead of evidence-based consensus [4][5][6][7][12]. 

'''What is causing the crisis?'''  

# Declining baseline trust. Long-running trend surveys show that public confidence in federal government, media, and science has fallen to historic lows [3][5][13]. 

# “Truth decay.” RAND researchers document four reinforcing drivers: cognitive biases, changes in the information ecosystem (social media, cable news), competing demands on journalism’s business model, and polarization [4].

# Perceived politicization inside expert communities. Experimental work indicates that when institutions take visible partisan stands, even ideologically aligned citizens lose confidence [1][20].   

# High-salience elite failures (see next section). Each conspicuous mistake furnishes vivid anecdotes that confirm the public’s priors that “experts” are unreliable [8][9][10][11][15].

 

 

 

'''Examples of elite failures that intensified the crisis''' 

 

* Public-health messaging whiplash during COVID-19 (e.g., early mask guidance that reversed within weeks), cited by Nate Silver as evidence of overconfidence and political signalling in scientific agencies [9]. 

 

* High-profile retractions and non-replicable studies in psychology, behavioral economics, and biomedicine [2][14].

 

* Media outlets misreporting the “Potomac plane crash” rescue narrative and other viral stories before verification, a pattern documented by Jesse Singal [17].

 

* The New York Times’ 2020 Tom Cotton op-ed controversy, flagged by The Economist as an example of newsroom homogeneity overriding editorial standards [18]. 

 

* NPR’s perceived loss of ideological diversity, described by a 25-year insider who argues it alienated broad audiences [19]. 

 

* Intelligence consensus on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (not in the list above but invoked by multiple authors as archetypal elite error) is frequently referenced in discussions of truth decay [4][6].

 

* Financial and political elites under-estimating the populist backlash that produced Brexit and the 2016 U.S. election, analysed by Dan Williams [8]. 

 

 

 

2003–2008 Early trust slide accelerates after Iraq-WMD intelligence failure and the Global Financial Crisis (cited retrospectively by Williams [8] and Yglesias [15]). 

 

2010–2013 Social-media platforms overtake newspapers as primary traffic drivers, beginning the incentives mis-alignment noted by RAND [4]. 

 

 

 

 

2020–2022 COVID-19 policy reversals and politically freighted scientific statements intensify scrutiny of expertise [5][9][20].

 

2023–2024 Multiple journalists and scholars (Mounk [12], Silver [9], Bezos [13]) publish essays on collapsing institutional credibility; Pew finds trust in federal government hovering near all-time lows [3]. 

 

 

 

* Some authors (e.g., Harris [11]) stress the moral duty of elites to defend objective truth even if it alienates partisans, whereas others (e.g., Khan [10]) argue that institutional neutrality must be restored first. 

 

 

 

 

# Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? – Steve Stewart-Williams newsletter (normative/empirical discussion of politicization).

# Politicization Undermines Trust in Institutions, Even Among the Ideologically Aligned Public – ResearchSquare pre-print (peer-review pending)

# Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science – Science (peer-reviewed journal article)

# Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 – Pew Research Center trend survey

# Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life – RAND Corporation research report

# Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline – Pew Research Center survey report

# An Epistemic Crisis? – Arnold Kling (opinion blog post)

# America’s Epistemological Crisis – Dan Williams (opinion essay)

# Elite Failures and Populist Backlash – Dan Williams (opinion essay)

# The Expert Class Is Failing, and So Is Biden’s Presidency – Nate Silver (opinion newsletter)

# It’s The Epistemology, Stupid – Sam Khan (opinion newsletter)

# The Reckoning – Sam Harris (opinion newsletter)

# Why The Media Moves in Unison – Yascha Mounk (opinion newsletter)

# 75% of Psychology Claims Are False – Lee Jussim (opinion newsletter summarizing peer-reviewed work)

# The Hard Truth: Americans Don’t Trust the News Media – Washington Post opinion piece (Jeff Bezos)

# Elite Misinformation Is an Underrated Problem – Matthew Yglesias (opinion newsletter)

# The Fake News About Fake News – Boston Review (magazine feature)

# How To Know Who To Trust, Potomac Plane Crash Edition – Jesse Singal (opinion newsletter)

# When The New York Times Lost Its Way – The Economist (magazine feature)

# I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust – The Free Press (first-person essay)

# Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? – Steve Stewart-Williams (opinion newsletter)