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'''What people mean by “the epistemic crisis”''' 


== What is 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:


“Epistemic crisis” is a shorthand now used in journalism, policy studies and commentary to describe a cluster of related problems:
'' 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] 


''  A broad loss of social agreement on what constitutes reliable knowledge, evidence or expertise. 
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.
''  A sustained drop in public trust in institutions historically relied upon to generate or curate knowledge—government, universities, science, and mainstream media. 
''  The rapid spread of conflicting factual claims, accompanied by the inability (or unwillingness) of citizens and leaders to adjudicate them.


RAND’s policy study “Truth Decay” framed the issue as “the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life” and dated its current wave to roughly the early‐2000s onward [4]. Subsequent academic work, survey research, and a cottage industry of essays and podcasts have popularized the phrase “epistemic crisis” to capture the same pattern [6][7][10].
'''Empirical indicators that fuel the diagnosis'''


== What is the cause of the epistemic crisis?  ==
* 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].


No single cause is uncontested, but the literature converges on four interactive drivers:
'''How the discussion divides'''


#  Institutional trust collapse.  Only about 16 % of Americans today say they trust the federal government “just about always or most of the time,” down from 77 % in 1964 [3].  Pew finds a parallel slide in trust in scientists: from 86 % expressing at least a “fair” amount of confidence in 2019 to 73 % in 2023 [5].
# “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].


#  Politicization of knowledge‐producing bodies.  Experimental evidence shows that when people learn an agency has taken overtly partisan positions, trust falls even among co-partisans [1].  Stewart-Williams argues that scientific organizations openly endorsing political candidates risks further erosion [20].
# “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].


#  Failures of expert reproducibility and accuracy.  The 2015 “Reproducibility Project” could replicate only 36 % of 100 landmark psychology findings [2].  Commentators such as Unsafe Science summarize the episode with the blunt headline “75 % of Psychology Claims Are False” [13].  RAND lists “Increasing disagreement about facts” as both symptom and driver [4].
# “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].


#  Media‐system changes.  Digital platforms lowered barriers to entry and amplified both misinformation and elite mistakes.  Pew, RAND, and columnists like Matt Yglesias argue the information environment became “high‐choice,” making disengagement or selective exposure easy [4][15].  Commentators from inside legacy outlets (Leonard Downie Jr. on the Washington Post [14]; Uri Berliner on NPR [19]) blame ideological homogeneity for eroding credibility.
# 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].


Opinion writers add other, sometimes conflicting hypotheses:
'''Why it matters'''


''  Arnold Kling emphasizes cognitive tribalism and “motives over methods” [6].   
* Policy: When public health agencies or climate panels are not believed, compliance and long-horizon legislation become harder.   
''  Sam Harris stresses social-media incentive structures [11].   
* Science: The “replication crisis” has prompted new norms (pre-registration, open data) but also fuels blanket scepticism toward expertise.   
''  Nate Silver foregrounds policy fiascos (e.g., pandemic messaging) and argues that “the expert class is failing” on performance grounds [9].
* Democracy: If citizens cannot agree on what happened—even immediately after an event—deliberation and accountability break down.


== Examples of elite failure that exacerbated the crisis  ==
'''Suggested responses under debate'''


(The list below is illustrative, not exhaustive, and reflects claims made by at least one cited source.)
* 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].


*  Psychology replication crisis (2011-present). Flagship journals published numerous findings that failed to replicate, exposing weaknesses in peer review [2][13].
No single prescription commands consensus; indeed, disagreement about remedies is itself treated as evidence that the epistemic crisis is real.


*  Pandemic policy reversals. Nate Silver cites shifting public-health guidance on masks and school closures as a textbook case where elites lost credibility [9].  RAND lists COVID-19 communication as a recent accelerant of Truth Decay [4].
'''Sources'''


* Financial crisis oversight (2008). RAND and Slow Boring note that regulatory agencies and economic forecasters largely missed systemic risk, feeding later populist distrust [4][15].
# 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


*  Media narrative cascades. Jesse Singal’s “Potomac Plane Crash” essay describes how early, thinly sourced claims can harden into consensus news frames before facts are confirmed [17].  Adrian Wooldridge in 1843 Magazine details The New York Times’ internal turbulence and corrections fights [18].
== Suggested Sources ==
 
*  Politicized science endorsements. The Research Square study shows that institutional alignment with partisan positions decreases public trust, even among ideological allies [1]; Stewart-Williams offers NASA’s 2020 endorsement of a presidential candidate as a cautionary tale [20].
 
*  Intelligence and policy failures in Iraq (2003). RAND lists the WMD assessments as a canonical modern case where elite error fed long-term skepticism [4]; Slow Boring argues it seeded today’s reflexive disbelief in official narratives [15].
 
Conflicts of interpretation: 
–  RAND and Pew emphasize structural media and cognitive drivers, whereas Substack authors like Sam Kahn and “Conspicuous Cognition” foreground philosophical shifts in epistemology and elite incentives [7][10]. 
–  Some commentators argue failures are overstated and what looks like an “epistemic crisis” is a normal feature of pluralistic democracy (e.g., Boston Review’s critique of “fake news” panic [16]). 
 
== Timeline of prominent public discourse ==
 
2015: Science publishes the Reproducibility Project, igniting mainstream concern about scientific reliability [2]. 
 
2016-2018: “Fake news” becomes a political slogan; RAND releases Truth Decay report (2018) detailing the phenomenon [4]. 
 
2019-2021: Pandemic intensifies scrutiny of expert performance; commentaries by Kling [6], Harris [11], and Unsafescience [13] popularize the phrase “epistemic crisis.” 
 
2023: Pew releases data showing ongoing decline in trust in scientists [5]; commentators like Silver [9] and Yglesias [15] link the trend to elite policy errors. 
 
2024: Research Square publishes experimental work on politicization of agencies [1]; a rash of insider essays (Berliner on NPR [19], Downie on WaPo [14]) argue newsroom homogeneity undermines credibility; Substack writers continue debate on epistemology vs. performance causes [7][10]. 
 
== Summary  ==
 
The epistemic crisis refers to a feedback loop in which shrinking trust and visible expert failures lower deference to institutions, which then increases politicization and incentives for sensational or ideological claims, further eroding trust.  While causes are debated, most analyses agree that institutional trust collapse, politicization, replication failures, and media transformations jointly produce today’s fragmented information environment.
 
== 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)
# [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)
# [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aac4716 Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science – ''Science''] (2015 peer-reviewed replication study)
# [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aac4716 Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science – ''Science''] (2015 peer-reviewed replication study)
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# [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)
# [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)
# [https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/should-scientific-organizations-endorse Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? – ''Steve Stewart-Williams'' (Substack)] (Commentary essay)
# [https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/should-scientific-organizations-endorse Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? – ''Steve Stewart-Williams'' (Substack)] (Commentary essay)
== 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?
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