What is the epistemic crisis?

Latest revision as of 23:29, 3 May 2025

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

What people mean by “the epistemic crisis”

In current English-language debate the phrase usually refers to a breakdown in the shared social machinery that allows large groups to decide what is true, false, or uncertain. Instead of one single problem, commentators point to an interacting cluster of trends:

declining public trust in traditional arbiters of knowledge such as government, universities, science and professional journalism [3] [5] accumulating evidence that many published research findings do not replicate or were oversold [2] [13] the politicisation of previously technical questions, which erodes trust even among citizens who are ideologically aligned with the institution in question [1] an information environment in which social and legacy media reward speed, outrage and group signalling more than accuracy or open error-correction [4] [12] [15]

Taken together, these dynamics are said to create an “epistemic crisis”: ordinary citizens, policy-makers and even experts disagree not only about values but about basic facts, data quality and who should be believed.

Empirical indicators that fuel the diagnosis

Trust in the U.S. federal government has fallen from about 75 % in the late 1960s to around 16 % in 2024 [3].
The share of Americans saying they have “a great deal” of confidence in scientists fell from 39 % in 2020 to 23 % in 2023 [5].
A large replication project in psychology reproduced only 36 % of 100 high-profile findings, with average effect sizes roughly half those originally reported [2].
RAND’s multi-year “Truth Decay” project documents rising disagreement about objective facts and a blurring of the line between opinion and evidence across U.S. media ecosystems [4].
Experimental work shows that simply signalling partisan involvement (e.g., a governor telling a state agency what conclusion to reach) lowers trust in the agency’s eventual report, even among co-partisans [1].

How the discussion divides

“Institutional failure first” view

  Writers such as Nate Silver, Yascha Mounk and Matt Yglesias emphasise elite mistakes, groupthink and overconfidence—especially during crises like COVID-19—as primary drivers of public scepticism [9] [12] [15].

“Populist / media ecosystem” view

  Others stress the role of social platforms, hyper-partisan media and algorithmic amplification of misinformation.  The RAND authors and many legacy-media commentators fall in this camp [4] [14].

“Epistemology itself” view

  Authors such as Arnold Kling and Sam Kahn argue the underlying problem is that society never developed scalable rules for adjudicating truth claims once information became effectively free to publish; therefore institutions were bound to lose control [6] [10].

Sceptical or minimising view

  A smaller group, including Boston Review’s legal scholars, cautions that talk of an epistemic crisis can be weaponised to delegitimise dissent and justify censorship.  They note that mistrust and propaganda are longstanding features of democratic life [16].

Why it matters

Policy: When public health agencies or climate panels are not believed, compliance and long-horizon legislation become harder.
Science: The “replication crisis” has prompted new norms (pre-registration, open data) but also fuels blanket scepticism toward expertise.
Democracy: If citizens cannot agree on what happened—even immediately after an event—deliberation and accountability break down.

Suggested responses under debate

Increase transparency, independent replication and error-correction in science and policy analysis [2] [4].
Separate technical work from overt partisan signalling (professional codes, firewalls, “keep the experts out of the endorsement business”) [1] [20].
Reform media incentives toward slower but more verifiable reporting, possibly through new funding models or audience metrics [12] [19].
Improve public statistical and methodological literacy so that disagreement about values is not conflated with disagreement about basic facts [4] [6].

No single prescription commands consensus; indeed, disagreement about remedies is itself treated as evidence that the epistemic crisis is real.

Sources

Politicization Undermines Trust in Institutions, Even Among the Ideologically Aligned Public – Research Square (2024 pre-print) https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3239561/v1
Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science – Science (2015) https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aac4716
Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 – Pew Research Center (2024) https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024
Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life – RAND Corporation (2018) https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2314.html
Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline – Pew Research Center (2023) https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/11/14/americans-trust-in-scientists-positive-views-of-science-continue-to-decline/
Arnold Kling, “An Epistemic Crisis?” – In My Tribe (Substack) https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/an-epistemic-crisis
“America’s Epistemological Crisis” – Conspicuous Cognition (Substack) https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/americas-epistemological-crisis
“Elite Failures and Populist Backlash” – Conspicuous Cognition (Substack) https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/elite-failures-and-populist-backlash
Nate Silver, “The Expert Class Is Failing, and So Is Biden’s Presidency” – Silver Bulletin (Substack) https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-expert-class-is-failing-and-so
Sam Kahn, “It’s the Epistemology, Stupid” – Sam Kahn (Substack) https://samkahn.substack.com/p/its-the-epistemology-stupid
Sam Harris, “The Reckoning” – Sam Harris (Substack) https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-reckoning
“Why the Media Moves in Unison” – Persuasion https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-the-media-moves-in-unison
“75 % of Psychology Claims Are False” – Unsafe Science (Substack) https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/75-of-psychology-claims-are-false
“The Hard Truth: Americans Don’t Trust the News Media” – The Washington Post (2024 Opinion) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/28/jeff-bezos-washington-post-trust/
Matt Yglesias, “Elite Misinformation Is an Underrated Problem” – Slow Boring (Substack) https://www.slowboring.com/p/elite-misinformation-is-an-underrated
“The Fake News About Fake News” – Boston Review https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-fake-news-about-fake-news/
Jesse Singal, “How to Know Who to Trust, Potomac Plane Crash Edition” – Substack https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/how-to-know-who-to-trust-potomac
“When the New York Times Lost Its Way” – 1843 Magazine, The Economist (2023) https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-times-lost-its-way
Uri Berliner, “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust” – The Free Press https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
Steve Stewart-Williams, “Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates?” – Substack https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/should-scientific-organizations-endorse

Suggested Sources[edit]

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

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 ''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?   ===
+'''What people mean by “the epistemic crisis”'''
-“Epistemic crisis” is the phrase commentators use for a broad breakdown in society’s ability to agree on what is true and why.  Arnold Kling defines it as a situation in which “we no longer share trusted processes for separating knowledge from opinion” [5].  Dan Williams adds that the breakdown is visible when “large factions reject not only specific facts but the very institutions and methods tasked with producing facts” [6].
+In current English-language debate the phrase usually refers to a breakdown in the shared social machinery that allows large groups to decide what is true, false, or uncertain.  Instead of one single problem, commentators point to an interacting cluster of trends:
-Peer-reviewed and survey data reinforce the diagnosis.  RAND’s Truth Decay project documents a “diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life” [4], while Pew shows public trust in the U.S. federal government hovering near historic lows since the mid-2010s [3].  The problem is not merely disagreement but a failure of the normal epistemic machinery—scientific replication, journalistic fact-checking, expert consensus—to command assent.
+'' declining public trust in traditional arbiters of knowledge such as government, universities, science and professional journalism [3] [5]
+'' accumulating evidence that many published research findings do not replicate or were oversold [2] [13]
+'' the politicisation of previously technical questions, which erodes trust even among citizens who are ideologically aligned with the institution in question [1]
+'' an information environment in which social and legacy media reward speed, outrage and group signalling more than accuracy or open error-correction [4] [12] [15]
-=== What is driving the crisis?   ===
+Taken together, these dynamics are said to create an “epistemic crisis”: ordinary citizens, policy-makers and even experts disagree not only about values but about basic facts, data quality and who should be believed.
-# Politicization of knowledge-producing institutions
+'''Empirical indicators that fuel the diagnosis'''
-   • A recent field experiment shows that when a scientific body is seen as politically aligned, trust falls even among ideologically sympathetic respondents [1].
-   • Steve Stewart-Williams argues that explicit political endorsements by professional organizations hasten this erosion [19].
-# Reproducibility problems inside science
+* Trust in the U.S. federal government has fallen from about 75 % in the late 1960s to around 16 % in 2024 [3].
-   • The Open Science Collaboration found that only ~36 % of 100 high-profile psychology findings could be reproduced [2].  Lee Jussim popularizes the result, warning that “75 % of psychology claims are false” [12].
+* The share of Americans saying they have “a great deal” of confidence in scientists fell from 39 % in 2020 to 23 % in 2023 [5].
+* A large replication project in psychology reproduced only 36 % of 100 high-profile findings, with average effect sizes roughly half those originally reported [2].
+* RAND’s multi-year “Truth Decay” project documents rising disagreement about objective facts and a blurring of the line between opinion and evidence across U.S. media ecosystems [4].
+* Experimental work shows that simply signalling partisan involvement (e.g., a governor telling a state agency what conclusion to reach) lowers trust in the agency’s eventual report, even among co-partisans [1].
-# Information glut and fragmentation
+'''How the discussion divides'''
-   • RAND identifies “the explosion of communication channels” as a driver of Truth Decay, making it easy for users to select congenial facts [4].  Sam Kahn calls this “epistemic disintermediation” [9].
-# Media herding and reputational incentives
+# “Institutional failure first” view
-    • Yascha Mounk observes that legacy outlets “move in unison,” producing monoculture narratives that lose credibility when they miss emerging facts [11].
+    Writers such as Nate Silver, Yascha Mounk and Matt Yglesias emphasise elite mistakes, groupthink and overconfidence—especially during crises like COVID-19—as primary drivers of public scepticism [9] [12] [15].
-   • Nate Silver ties declining trust to an “expert class” rewarded more for expressing group consensus than for being right [8].
-# Feedback loop of distrust
+# “Populist / media ecosystem” view
-    • Pew finds that as trust drops, citizens discount corrective information, deepening polarization [3].  Kling labels this a “state of mutual epistemic sabotage” [5].
+    Others stress the role of social platforms, hyper-partisan media and algorithmic amplification of misinformation.  The RAND authors and many legacy-media commentators fall in this camp [4] [14].
-Commentators disagree on relative weight: Harris emphasizes social-media amplification of falsehoods [10], while Williams stresses institutional self-inflicted wounds [6].  Both acknowledge a multi-cause dynamic.
+# “Epistemology itself” view
+   Authors such as Arnold Kling and Sam Kahn argue the underlying problem is that society never developed scalable rules for adjudicating truth claims once information became effectively free to publish; therefore institutions were bound to lose control [6] [10].
-=== Examples of elite failures that intensified the crisis   ===
+# Sceptical or minimising view
+   A smaller group, including Boston Review’s legal scholars, cautions that talk of an epistemic crisis can be weaponised to delegitimise dissent and justify censorship.  They note that mistrust and propaganda are longstanding features of democratic life [16].
-* Iraq WMD intelligence (2002-2003) – Used by RAND as an archetype of expert over-confidence that later collapsed [4].
+'''Why it matters'''
-* 2008 financial crisis – Widespread failure of regulators, ratings agencies, and economists to foresee systemic risk; cited by Williams as the moment “technocratic credibility cracked” [7].
+* Policy: When public health agencies or climate panels are not believed, compliance and long-horizon legislation become harder.
+* Science: The “replication crisis” has prompted new norms (pre-registration, open data) but also fuels blanket scepticism toward expertise.
+* Democracy: If citizens cannot agree on what happened—even immediately after an event—deliberation and accountability break down.
-* Reproducibility crisis in psychology (2011-present) – Empirical exposure of non-replicable flagship findings [2][12].
+'''Suggested responses under debate'''
-* 2016 U.S. presidential polling miss – Silver notes that most forecasters conveyed unwarranted certainty, fueling a populist backlash against “data journalism” [8].
+* Increase transparency, independent replication and error-correction in science and policy analysis [2] [4].
+* Separate technical work from overt partisan signalling (professional codes, firewalls, “keep the experts out of the endorsement business”) [1] [20].
+* Reform media incentives toward slower but more verifiable reporting, possibly through new funding models or audience metrics [12] [19].
+* Improve public statistical and methodological literacy so that disagreement about values is not conflated with disagreement about basic facts [4] [6].
-* Early COVID-19 messaging (2020) – Shifts on masks, school closures, and lab-leak hypotheses became emblematic of what Yglesias calls “elite misinformation” [14].
+No single prescription commands consensus; indeed, disagreement about remedies is itself treated as evidence that the epistemic crisis is real.
-* Media mishandling of the Hunter Biden laptop story (2020) – Mounk and The Economist document newsroom groupthink and later corrections [11][17].
+'''Sources'''
-* NPR internal critique (2024) – Senior editor Uri Berliner argues that ideological homogeneity alienated half the audience [18].
+# Politicization Undermines Trust in Institutions, Even Among the Ideologically Aligned Public – Research Square (2024 pre-print) https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3239561/v1
+# Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science – Science (2015) https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aac4716
+# Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 – Pew Research Center (2024) https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024
+# Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life – RAND Corporation (2018) https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2314.html
+# Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline – Pew Research Center (2023) https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/11/14/americans-trust-in-scientists-positive-views-of-science-continue-to-decline/
+# Arnold Kling, “An Epistemic Crisis?” – In My Tribe (Substack) https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/an-epistemic-crisis
+# “America’s Epistemological Crisis” – Conspicuous Cognition (Substack) https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/americas-epistemological-crisis
+# “Elite Failures and Populist Backlash” – Conspicuous Cognition (Substack) https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/elite-failures-and-populist-backlash
+# Nate Silver, “The Expert Class Is Failing, and So Is Biden’s Presidency” – Silver Bulletin (Substack) https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-expert-class-is-failing-and-so
+# Sam Kahn, “It’s the Epistemology, Stupid” – Sam Kahn (Substack) https://samkahn.substack.com/p/its-the-epistemology-stupid
+# Sam Harris, “The Reckoning” – Sam Harris (Substack) https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-reckoning
+# “Why the Media Moves in Unison” – Persuasion https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-the-media-moves-in-unison
+# “75 % of Psychology Claims Are False” – Unsafe Science (Substack) https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/75-of-psychology-claims-are-false
+# “The Hard Truth: Americans Don’t Trust the News Media” – The Washington Post (2024 Opinion) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/28/jeff-bezos-washington-post-trust/
+# Matt Yglesias, “Elite Misinformation Is an Underrated Problem” – Slow Boring (Substack) https://www.slowboring.com/p/elite-misinformation-is-an-underrated
+# “The Fake News About Fake News” – Boston Review https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-fake-news-about-fake-news/
+# Jesse Singal, “How to Know Who to Trust, Potomac Plane Crash Edition” – Substack https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/how-to-know-who-to-trust-potomac
+# “When the New York Times Lost Its Way” – 1843 Magazine, The Economist (2023) https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-times-lost-its-way
+# Uri Berliner, “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust” – The Free Press https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
+# Steve Stewart-Williams, “Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates?” – Substack https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/should-scientific-organizations-endorse
-Each episode sharpened public suspicion that institutional gatekeepers are fallible, biased, or both, reinforcing the crisis cycle.
+== Suggested Sources ==
+# [https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3239561/v1 Politicization Undermines Trust in Institutions, Even Among the Ideologically Aligned Public – ''Research Square''] (2024 pre-print; Empirical research)
-=== Timeline of key moments in the public discourse   ===
+# [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aac4716 Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science – ''Science''] (2015 peer-reviewed replication study)
+# [https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024 Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 – ''Pew Research Center''] (Long-running survey report)
-  – Iraq WMD intelligence failure fuels first wave of anti-establishment skepticism [4].
+# [https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2314.html Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life – ''RAND Corporation''] (2018 research report / policy study)
+# [https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/11/14/americans-trust-in-scientists-positive-views-of-science-continue-to-decline/ Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline – ''Pew Research Center''] (2023 survey report)
--2014  – Blogs and social media accelerate “epistemic fragmentation” noted by RAND, while the term “Truth Decay” gains currency [4].
+# [https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/an-epistemic-crisis An Epistemic Crisis? – ''In My Tribe'' (Substack)] (Opinion / Essay)
+# [https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/americas-epistemological-crisis America’s Epistemological Crisis – ''Conspicuous Cognition''] (Commentary essay)
--2016  – Reproducibility crisis formalised in Science article (Aug 2015) [2].  2016 election shocks polls and pundits [8], popularising “epistemic crisis” terminology [5][6].
+# [https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/elite-failures-and-populist-backlash Elite Failures and Populist Backlash – ''Conspicuous Cognition''] (Commentary essay)
+# [https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-expert-class-is-failing-and-so The Expert Class Is Failing, and So Is Biden’s Presidency – ''Silver Bulletin'' (Substack)] (Opinion / Essay)
-  – COVID-19 policy reversals and information wars mainstream the phrase.  Harris’s podcast series on “The Reckoning” (Oct 2020) frames the situation as a social-media pathology [10].
+# [https://samkahn.substack.com/p/its-the-epistemology-stupid It’s the Epistemology, Stupid – ''Sam Kahn'' (Substack)] (Opinion / Essay)
+# [https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-reckoning The Reckoning – ''Sam Harris'' (Substack)] (Opinion / Essay)
--2023  – Substack writers (Kling, Williams, Yglesias, Silver) debate whether elite bias or populist disinformation is the bigger culprit [5][6][14][8].
+# [https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-the-media-moves-in-unison Why the Media Moves in Unison – ''Persuasion''] (Opinion / Essay)
+# [https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/75-of-psychology-claims-are-false 75 % of Psychology Claims Are False – ''Unsafe Science'' (Substack)] (Commentary / Replication-crisis analysis)
-  – Pew updates its long-term trust series (June 2024) showing no rebound [3].  NPR and New York Times insiders publish self-critiques [18][17], keeping the crisis on the front page.
+# [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/28/jeff-bezos-washington-post-trust/ The Hard Truth: Americans Don’t Trust the News Media – ''The Washington Post''] (2024 Opinion / Op-Ed)
+# [https://www.slowboring.com/p/elite-misinformation-is-an-underrated Elite Misinformation Is an Underrated Problem – ''Slow Boring''] (Opinion / Essay)
-=== Current state of the debate   ===
+# [https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-fake-news-about-fake-news/ The Fake News About Fake News – ''Boston Review''] (Long-form analysis / Essay)
+# [https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/how-to-know-who-to-trust-potomac How to Know Who to Trust, Potomac Plane Crash Edition – ''Jesse Singal'' (Substack)] (Commentary / Media criticism)
-There is convergence that the epistemic crisis is real and multifactorial.  Disagreement persists on whether elite reform (greater transparency, methodological rigor) or audience reform (media literacy, algorithmic changes) should come first.  Some analysts, such as Sam Harris [10], foreground the role of social-media architecture, while Arnold Kling [5] and Dan Williams [6] stress institutional trustworthiness.  RAND’s policy prescriptions focus on both supply-side (improving expert communication) and demand-side (civic education) measures [4].
+# [https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-times-lost-its-way When the New York Times Lost Its Way – ''1843 Magazine'' (''The Economist'')] (Magazine feature)
+# [https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust – ''The Free Press''] (First-person essay / Media criticism)
-=== Summary   ===
+# [https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/should-scientific-organizations-endorse Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? – ''Steve Stewart-Williams'' (Substack)] (Commentary essay)
-An epistemic crisis exists when shared mechanisms for establishing truth lose authority.  It is driven by politicization of institutions, scientific reproducibility failures, information-ecosystem changes, and repeated elite misjudgments.  Episodes from WMD intelligence to COVID-19 messaging have compounded distrust, producing a feedback loop documented in survey and experimental data.  Scholars, journalists, and commentators agree on the severity but contest the primary cause and best remedy of the crisis.
-== Sources ==
-Peer-reviewed Science:
-# [https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3239561/v1 Study: Politicization Undermines Trust in Institutions, Even Among the Ideologically Aligned Public]
-# [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aac4716 Study: Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science]
-Data-driven Analysis:
-# [https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024 Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 - Pew Research]
-# [https://www.rand.org/pubs/research%20reports/RR2314.html Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life - RAND Corporation]
-Investigative Journalism & Commentary:
-# [https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/an-epistemic-crisis An Epistemic Crisis? - Arnold Kling]
-# [https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/americas-epistemological-crisis America's epistemological crisis - Dan Williams]
-# [https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/elite-failures-and-populist-backlash Elite failures and populist backlash - Dan Williams]
-# [https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-expert-class-is-failing-and-so The expert class is failing, and so is Biden’s presidency Nate Silver]
-# [https://samkahn.substack.com/p/its-the-epistemology-stupid It's The Epistemology, Stupid - Sam Khan]
-# [https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-reckoning The Reckoning - Sam Harris]
-# [https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-the-media-moves-in-unison Why The Media Moves in Unison - Yascha Mounk]
-# [https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/75-of-psychology-claims-are-false 75% of Psychology Claims are False - Lee Jussim]
-# [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/28/jeff-bezos-washington-post-trust/ The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media - Jeff Bezos]
-# [https://www.slowboring.com/p/elite-misinformation-is-an-underrated - Elite misinformation is an underrated problem - Matthew Yglesias]
-# [https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-fake-news-about-fake-news/ The Fake News about Fake News - The Boston Review]
-# [https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/how-to-know-who-to-trust-potomac - How To Know Who To Trust, Potomac Plane Crash Edition - Jess Singal]
-# [https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-times-lost-its-way When the New York Times lost its way - The Economist]
-# [https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.]
-# [https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/should-scientific-organizations-endorse Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? - Steve Stewart-Williams]
-== 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?