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.

Politicization of expert bodies

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

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].

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].

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].

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

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)

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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-''(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.''
-'''What is the epistemic crisis?'''
+=== What is the epistemic crisis? ===
-“Epistemic crisis” is the label commonly given to the widespread breakdown of shared norms for establishing what is true, reliable or authoritative.  RAND’s 2018 report on “Truth Decay” described “diminishing agreement about facts” and “declining trust in previously respected sources of factual information” as the defining features of the phenomenon [4].  Survey data show steady erosion of confidence in government [3], scientists [5], and the news media [14].  Essays by commentators across the ideological spectrum (e.g., Arnold Kling [6], Conspicuous Cognition [7], Nate Silver [9]) interpret these numbers as evidence that American public life no longer has a commonly accepted epistemic authority.  The crisis is therefore not just about “fake news” but about a structural weakening of the institutions and practices that once produced a common evidentiary baseline.
-'''Causes of 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].
-# Politicization of institutions
+Key diagnostic signals include:
-   • Experimental work shows that when people learn an institution has taken a partisan stand, trust falls even among ideological allies [1].
-   • Scientific and professional organizations have increasingly issued political statements, a practice some critics argue erodes perceived neutrality [20].
-# Replication and methodological problems in science
+'' Collapsing confidence in federal government [3] and in the news media [14][18].
-   • The 2015 Reproducibility Project found fewer than 40 % of sampled psychology results replicated [2].
+'' Falling trust in scientists despite historically high approval a decade ago [5].
-   • Follow-up syntheses estimate that “roughly 75 % of psychology claims are false” [13].  Public coverage of these findings contributes to doubt about expert authority [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].
-# Media system incentives
+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].
-   • RAND notes “blurring of the line between opinion and fact” in 24-hour and online media [4].
-   • Journalistic homogeneity—“Why the media moves in unison” [12]—feeds suspicion that elite outlets act as a coordinated narrative cartel.
-   • First-person accounts from within legacy outlets (e.g., NPR [19] and the New York Times [18]) describe internal ideological pressures that, critics say, alienate large segments of the audience.
-# Information abundance and social media
+=== What is causing it? ===
-   • Commentators argue that decentralized, algorithm-driven platforms overwhelm citizens’ ability to vet claims, making it easier for both elite and non-elite misinformation to spread [15].
-# Declining performance of governing and expert institutions
+Most authors cite an interaction of structural, technological, and institutional failures rather than a single villain.
-   • Per Pew, trust in federal government has hovered near historic lows since the mid-2000s [3].  Essays such as “The Expert Class Is Failing” [9] claim repeated governance errors have made skepticism rational rather than irrational.
-'''Examples of elite failures frequently cited as catalysts'''
+# Politicization of expert bodies
-(The listed sources may discuss or use them as illustrative cases rather than provide original reporting.)
+   When agencies or professional associations take overt positions on contested political questions, public trust falls sharply [1][20].
-* Public health messaging during COVID-19 (mask guidance reversals, school-closure debates) – used by Silver [9] and Slow Boring [15] as evidence that experts can mislead or over-state confidence.
+# 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].
-* The replication crisis in psychology and social science – documented empirically by Science [2] and spotlighted for the lay public by Unsafe Science [13].
+# 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].
-* Media framing errors, e.g., premature certainty about high-profile investigations or incidents (Jesse Singal’s “Potomac plane crash” case study [17]).
+# 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].
-* Perceived groupthink at flagship news organizations – internal critiques from veteran journalists at the New York Times [18] and NPR [19].
+# 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].
-* Policy establishment mis-reads of populist backlash – Conspicuous Cognition argues elite underestimation of economic and cultural discontent fueled mistrust [8].
+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].
-(Authors disagree on the weight of each example.  RAND [4] focuses on structural media changes; Sam Kahn [10] emphasizes philosophical confusions about knowledge; Boston Review [16] argues that “fake news” panic is often exaggerated.)
+=== Examples of elite failure that fuelled the crisis ===
-'''Timeline of key moments in the public discourse'''
+(The list reflects events repeatedly cited in the sources; not every essay mentions every item.)
-– Reproducibility Project publishes in Science, sparking mainstream attention to methodological weaknesses [2].
+* Replication crisis in psychology and social science – high-profile findings failed to reproduce when tested by the Open Science Collaboration [2][13].
-– 2018 – “Fake news” becomes a political catch-phrase; RAND releases “Truth Decay” (2018) framing the issue as systemic [4].
+* COVID-19 communication reversals – shifting guidance on masking, school closures, and lab-leak plausibility are cited as emblematic of politicized expertise [1][6][15].
-– COVID-19 pandemic accelerates debate over expert credibility; Substack essays multiply (e.g., Kling [6]).
+* Financial-crisis risk modelling – “expert” assurances before 2008 collapsed rapidly, illustrating misaligned incentives in economic forecasting [8][9].
-– Pew reports continued slide in trust in scientists [5]; commentaries such as “Elite Misinformation Is an Underrated Problem” argue the conversation had been too focused on fringe conspiracy theories [15].
+* 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].
-– Pre-print evidence that politicization itself depresses trust even among partisans [1]; opinion pieces in major outlets (Washington Post [14]) and Substacks (Silver [9]) frame the crisis as central to electoral politics.
+* 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].
-'''Current contours of the debate'''
+=== Public-discourse timeline ===
-* Some scholars and journalists see an existential threat to liberal democracy if no shared epistemic foundation can be restored [4][12].
-* Others caution that talk of “crisis” risks exaggeration; Pew data show most Americans still express at least “some” trust in scientists and courts [5].
-* Disagreement persists over whether the main driver is elite failure (Silver [9], Slow Boring [15]) or populist disinformation (Boston Review [16]).  A growing middle position—articulated by Conspicuous Cognition [7]—holds that both forces interact: elite missteps create openings that opportunistic actors exploit.
-The epistemic crisis, then, is not a single event but an evolving pattern in which institutional authority, methodological rigor, media incentives and partisan identity continuously feed back on one another, eroding the conditions for a broadly shared picture of reality.
+– “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science” finds only ~36 % of 100 landmark studies replicate, launching mainstream attention to the replication crisis [2].
+-2017 – Post-election debates over “fake news” and filter bubbles surface; RAND begins drafting Truth Decay framework, published in 2018 [4].
+– Truth Decay report formalises concern about declining trust and factual fragmentation [4].
+-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]).
+– Pew documents a ten-point drop (since 2020) in Americans who say scientists “care about the public” [5].
+– 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 ==