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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.'' | | ''Written by AI. Help improve this answer by adding to the sources section. When the sources section is updated this article will regenerate.'' |
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| === What is the epistemic crisis? ===
| | '''What is the epistemic crisis?''' |
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| 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].
| | An “epistemic crisis” is a breakdown in the social systems that allow people to agree on what is probably true. Commentators argue that large segments of the public no longer share a common set of trusted institutions, methods or experts that can reliably adjudicate facts, which in turn weakens collective decision-making and democratic legitimacy [4][6][7]. Surveys show that confidence in government, the news media and science has declined to historic lows [3][5][14]. Empirically, the crisis is visible in the replication failures of psychology and other sciences [2][13] and in rising perceptions that politics, not evidence, drives institutional statements [1]. |
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| Key diagnostic signals include:
| | '''What is the cause of the epistemic crisis?''' |
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| '' Collapsing confidence in federal government [3] and in the news media [14][18].
| | Most writers see several interacting causes rather than a single trigger. |
| '' Falling trust in scientists despite historically high approval a decade ago [5].
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| '' Empirical findings that many published scientific claims, especially in psychology, fail to replicate [2][13].
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| '' Experimental evidence that overt politicization of neutral bodies (e.g., public-health agencies) erodes confidence even among ideological allies [1].
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| 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].
| | * Politicization of expertise. Experiments find that when an institution takes a partisan stance, trust falls even among people who share its politics [1]. |
| | * Declining reproducibility and transparency in research. The 2015 “Reproducibility Project” replicated only 36 % of 100 prominent psychology findings [2]; commentators translate this into a generalized suspicion that “75 % of psychology claims are false” [13]. |
| | * “Truth Decay.” RAND describes a long-term shift in which objective facts have less influence on opinion, fueled by information overload, social media and polarization [4]. |
| | * Media homogeneity and economic pressures. Essays argue that prestige outlets increasingly move “in unison,” narrowing the range of permissible viewpoints and amplifying mistakes [12][18][19]. |
| | * Elite performance failures. Policy blunders, financial crises and pandemic missteps reduce the perceived competence of experts and thus the willingness to defer to them [8][9][15]. |
| | * Feedback loop of distrust. Falling trust leads people to seek alternative information sources, which are often lower quality, reinforcing the cycle of doubt [16]. |
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| === What is causing it? ===
| | '''What are some examples of elite failure that caused the epistemic crisis?''' |
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| Most authors cite an interaction of structural, technological, and institutional failures rather than a single villain.
| | Commentators point to high-profile episodes where institutional actors were later judged to have misinformed or under-performed. The list below focuses on cases repeatedly cited across the sources. |
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| # Politicization of expert bodies
| | * Replication crisis in psychology and biomedical research [2][13] – journals and professional societies published results that could not be reproduced, shaking faith in peer review. |
| When agencies or professional associations take overt positions on contested political questions, public trust falls sharply [1][20].
| | * Financial crisis of 2008 – although not detailed in the listed pieces, several authors cite it as an origin of populist backlash against economic and governmental elites [8][9]. |
| # Incentive problems inside knowledge-producing fields
| | * COVID-19 policy communication – Substack essays accuse health agencies and media of oscillating messages on masks, school closures and vaccine side-effects, eroding credibility [6][9][15]. |
| 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].
| | * Politicized scientific endorsements – controversies such as professional societies endorsing specific political candidates are taken as evidence that science is being leveraged for partisan goals [20]. |
| | * Media miscues – examples include the “Potomac plane crash” rumor mill [17], perceived ideological conformity at The New York Times [18] and NPR’s loss of cross-partisan trust [19]. |
| | * Intelligence and national-security assessments – while not covered in depth by the academic sources, opinion writers frame pre-war weapons claims and surveillance revelations as emblematic elite errors [7][11]. |
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| # Media transformation
| | '''Conflicting views and ongoing discourse''' |
| 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].
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| # Partisan filtering and motivated reasoning
| | Not everyone accepts the “crisis” framing. Pew finds that majorities still express at least “a fair amount” of trust in scientists, even as the trend declines [5]. Boston Review warns that panic about “fake news” can itself be exaggerated and weaponized to suppress dissent [16]. Arnold Kling doubts that an epistemic collapse has truly occurred, suggesting instead that the internet merely exposes longstanding disagreements [6]. Conversely, RAND, Nate Silver and others argue the problem is real and worsening [4][9]. The debate thus centers on whether current trust levels are dangerously low or simply adjusting to a new information ecosystem. |
| 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].
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| # Elite signalling and perceived hypocrisy
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| 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].
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| 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].
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| === Examples of elite failure that fuelled the crisis ===
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| (The list reflects events repeatedly cited in the sources; not every essay mentions every item.)
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| * Replication crisis in psychology and social science – high-profile findings failed to reproduce when tested by the Open Science Collaboration [2][13].
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| * COVID-19 communication reversals – shifting guidance on masking, school closures, and lab-leak plausibility are cited as emblematic of politicized expertise [1][6][15].
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| * Financial-crisis risk modelling – “expert” assurances before 2008 collapsed rapidly, illustrating misaligned incentives in economic forecasting [8][9].
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| * 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].
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| * 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].
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| === Public-discourse timeline ===
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| 2015 – “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science” finds only ~36 % of 100 landmark studies replicate, launching mainstream attention to the replication crisis [2].
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| 2016-2017 – Post-election debates over “fake news” and filter bubbles surface; RAND begins drafting Truth Decay framework, published in 2018 [4].
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| 2018 – Truth Decay report formalises concern about declining trust and factual fragmentation [4].
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| 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]).
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| 2023 – Pew documents a ten-point drop (since 2020) in Americans who say scientists “care about the public” [5].
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| 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.
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| === Summary ===
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| 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.
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| == Sources == | | == Sources == |