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'''What is the epistemic crisis?''' 
== 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].   
Commentators use the phrase “epistemic crisis” to describe a breakdown in the shared procedures a society uses to decide what is true. In the United States this breakdown is visible in three intertwined trends.   


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# Collapsing public trust in the institutions traditionally charged with producing and arbitrating knowledge (government, media, academia, science) [3][4][5]. 
# Explosive growth of competing information channels that make it easy for false, partial or partisan claims to circulate more quickly than professional fact-checking can keep up [4][6][12][16]. 
# A perception that the elites who lead those institutions repeatedly fail or behave strategically, thereby forfeiting their epistemic authority [7][8][9][15]. 


'''What is causing the crisis?'''  
As Arnold Kling puts it, “epistemic crisis” is shorthand for “a condition in which people no longer know whom to trust” [6].  Dan Williams widens the definition to include the fear that the entire knowledge-producing class has become “ideologically captured” [7], while Sam Harris argues that the more acute danger comes from populist misinformation rather than elite error [11].  The concept therefore names a shared problem even though writers disagree about its primary villains.  


# 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]. 
== What is causing the crisis? ==


# “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].   
* Politicization of knowledge institutions: Experimental evidence shows that merely describing an institution as favoring one party reduces trust among both in-party and out-party respondents [1].   


# Perceived politicization inside expert communities. Experimental work indicates that when institutions take visible partisan stands, even ideologically aligned citizens lose confidence [1][20].   
* Demonstrated failures in scientific reliability: A large replication audit found that only 36 % of highly-cited psychology papers replicated [2]; popular write-ups go further, claiming “75 % of psychology claims are false” [13].   


# Reproducibility problems in flagship sciences. The 2015 Science study replicated only 36 % of high-profile psychology findings [2], a result widely portrayed as evidence that peer review alone cannot safeguard truth [14].   
* Long-term decline in institutional trust: Trust in the federal government has fallen from 73 % in 1958 to around 16 % in 2024 [3].  Trust in scientists has slipped from a pandemic high of 39 % “a great deal” of confidence to 23 % in 2023 [5].   


# 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].   
* Truth Decay and media fragmentation: RAND’s survey documents how a 24/7 information ecosystem rewards speed and outrage over accuracy, erodes a common set of facts and blurs the line between news and commentary [4].   


These explanations are not universally accepted. Some writers believe the main culprit is populist manipulation of social media, whereas others stress structural incentives inside elite institutions themselves [16][17].   
* Elite communication mistakes:  Yascha Mounk shows how major outlets often “move in unison,” amplifying early consensus narratives that later prove wrong [12].  Matthew Yglesias argues that elite misinformation is “underrated” because it can shape policy for years before being corrected [15].   


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* Social incentives inside expert communities:  Steve Stewart-Williams cautions that professional societies taking partisan stands risk signaling that “our science is for our political team” and thereby weaken their credibility [20]. 


'''Examples of elite failures that intensified the crisis''' 
== Examples of elite failure that fueled the epistemic 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].   
* The Replication Crisis:  Failure of journals, universities and funding agencies to ensure the reliability of published findings exposed systemic weaknesses in academic gate-keeping [2][13].   


* High-profile retractions and non-replicable studies in psychology, behavioral economics, and biomedicine [2][14].   
* COVID-19 communication:  Nate Silver contends that public-health officials issued overconfident or inconsistent statements (e.g., early mask guidance, school closures), creating a “credibility black hole” [9].  Kling and Kahn make similar points about shifting goalposts [6][10].   


* Media outlets misreporting the “Potomac plane crash” rescue narrative and other viral stories before verification, a pattern documented by Jesse Singal [17].   
* Financial crisis of 2008:  Dan Williams lists regulators’ inability to foresee systemic risk as an example of expert failure that spurred populist backlash [8].   


* The New York Times’ 2020 Tom Cotton op-ed controversy, flagged by The Economist as an example of newsroom homogeneity overriding editorial standards [18].   
* Intelligence errors over Iraqi WMDs:  Sam Harris treats these mistakes as paradigm cases of elite misjudgment that later empowered conspiracy thinking [11].   


* NPR’s perceived loss of ideological diversity, described by a 25-year insider who argues it alienated broad audiences [19].   
* Media misfires:  The Economist chronicles episodes—ranging from the 2020 Tom Cotton lab-leak op-ed to the Gaza-hospital headline—where the New York Times leapt to conclusions that later required correction [18].  A veteran editor at NPR offers a parallel account inside public radio [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].   
* Politicized scientific statements:  Stewart-Williams notes that when scientific organizations endorsed a 2020 presidential candidate they alienated some of their own members and fed claims of bias [20].   


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


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1958-1974 High trust in government (>60 %) collapses after Vietnam and Watergate [3]. 


'''Timeline of the public conversation'''  
1990s Cable news and talk radio fragment the news audience; RAND traces early “truth decay” signals [4].  


2003–2008 Early trust slide accelerates after Iraq-WMD intelligence failure and the Global Financial Crisis (cited retrospectively by Williams [8] and Yglesias [15]).   
2003 Iraq WMD intelligence failure becomes a touchstone for skepticism toward experts [11].   


2010–2013 Social-media platforms overtake newspapers as primary traffic drivers, beginning the incentives mis-alignment noted by RAND [4].   
2008 Global financial crisis deepens the idea that credentialed elites are error-prone [8].   


2015 Science publishes “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science” [2]; phrase “replication crisis” gains mainstream attention.   
2011-2015 Psychology replication crisis comes to light; Science publishes the 100-paper replication project in 2015 [2].   


2016 U.S. election popularizes “fake news,” prompting debates over platform moderation and media partisanship [16].   
2016 “Fake news” enters mainstream vocabulary after the U.S. election [16].   


2018 RAND releases Truth Decay report [4]; Pew documents steep fall in Republican trust in national media [13].   
2020-2022 Pandemic amplifies disputes over masks, schools, vaccines; public trust in scientists hits a five-year low by 2023 [5][9].   


2020–2022 COVID-19 policy reversals and politically freighted scientific statements intensify scrutiny of expertise [5][9][20].   
2023-2024 A wave of articles (Kling, Williams, Yglesias, Mounk, Silver) explicitly label the situation an “epistemic crisis” [6][7][9][12][15].   


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]. 
== Conflicting perspectives in the sources ==


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* Cause emphasis: Harris sees the main danger in populist misinformation [11], Yglesias in elite error [15]; Williams argues both reinforce each other [7]. 


'''Points of disagreement in the sources'''  
* Severity: Pew data show gradual decline in trust [3][5], whereas Substack writers describe a precipice-like collapse [6][9].  


* 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. 
* Solutions: RAND recommends civic education and media literacy [4]; Kling doubts top-down fixes and favors decentralized “trust networks” [6]; Harris calls for stronger gate-keeping on major platforms [11].   
 
* Researchers such as Cook et al. [1] emphasize measurable effects of politicization on trust, while opinion writers like Williams [6][8] foreground cultural ressentiment and class dynamics.   
 
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Sources (to be expanded by the community) 
== Source Analysis ==


# Politicization Undermines Trust in Institutions, Even Among the Ideologically Aligned Public – ResearchSquare pre-print (empirical study).   
# Politicization Undermines Trust in Institutions (ResearchSquare pre-print) – experimental social-science study.   
# Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science – Science journal article (peer-reviewed replication project).   
# Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science (Science journal article) – large-scale replication audit.   
# Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 – Pew Research Center trend survey (longitudinal polling data).   
# Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 (Pew Research Center) – longitudinal survey report.   
# Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life – RAND Corporation research report (multi-factor analysis).   
# Truth Decay (RAND Corporation) – policy research monograph.   
# Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline – Pew Research Center survey report (public opinion).   
# Americans’ Trust in Scientists… (Pew Research Center) – survey report.   
# An Epistemic Crisis? – Arnold Kling blog post (commentary).   
# An Epistemic Crisis? (Arnold Kling) – opinion essay / Substack.   
# America’s Epistemological Crisis – Dan Williams essay (opinion).   
# America’s epistemological crisis (Dan Williams) – analytical essay / Substack.   
# Elite Failures and Populist Backlash – Dan Williams essay (opinion).   
# Elite failures and populist backlash (Dan Williams) – analytical essay / Substack.   
# The Expert Class Is Failing, and So Is Biden’s Presidency – Nate Silver newsletter (commentary).   
# The expert class is failing… (Nate Silver) – journalistic commentary / Substack.   
# It’s The Epistemology, Stupid – Sam Khan newsletter (commentary).   
# It’s the Epistemology, Stupid (Sam Kahn) – opinion essay / Substack.   
# The Reckoning – Sam Harris newsletter (commentary).   
# The Reckoning (Sam Harris) – podcast / essay transcript.   
# Why The Media Moves in Unison – Yascha Mounk newsletter (media analysis). 
# Why the Media Moves in Unison (Yascha Mounk) – investigative commentary.   
# The Hard Truth: Americans Don’t Trust the News Media – Washington Post opinion (Jeff Bezos).   
# 75 % of Psychology Claims are False (Lee Jussim) – explanatory blog post. 
# 75% of Psychology Claims Are False – Lee Jussim newsletter summarizing peer-reviewed work (meta-research commentary).   
# The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media (Jeff Bezos op-ed) – newspaper opinion column.   
# Elite Misinformation Is an Underrated Problem – Matthew Yglesias newsletter (commentary with empirical references).   
# Elite misinformation is an underrated problem (Matthew Yglesias) – policy commentary / Substack.   
# The Fake News About Fake News – Boston Review feature (magazine analysis).   
# The Fake News about Fake News (Boston Review) – magazine essay.   
# How To Know Who To Trust, Potomac Plane Crash Edition – Jesse Singal newsletter (media criticism).   
# How To Know Who To Trust… (Jesse Singal) – media criticism / Substack.   
# When The New York Times Lost Its Way – The Economist feature (media industry analysis).   
# When the New York Times lost its way (The Economist) – investigative feature.   
# I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust – The Free Press first-person essay (insider account).   
# I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years… (The Free Press) – insider account.   
# Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? – Steve Stewart-Williams newsletter (normative/empirical discussion of politicization).
# Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? (Steve Stewart-Williams) – opinion essay / Substack.


== Sources ==
== Sources ==
# Politicization Undermines Trust in Institutions, Even Among the Ideologically Aligned Public – ResearchSquare pre-print (peer-review pending) 
# [https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3239561/v1 Study: Politicization Undermines Trust in Institutions, Even Among the Ideologically Aligned Public]
# Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science – Science (peer-reviewed journal article) 
# [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aac4716 Study: Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science]
# Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 – Pew Research Center trend survey 
# [https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024 Public Trust in Government: 1958-2024 - Pew Research]
# Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life – RAND Corporation research report 
# [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]
# Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Positive Views of Science Continue to Decline – Pew Research Center survey report 
# [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]
# An Epistemic Crisis? – Arnold Kling (opinion blog post) 
# [https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/an-epistemic-crisis An Epistemic Crisis? - Arnold Kling]
# America’s Epistemological Crisis – Dan Williams (opinion essay) 
# [https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/americas-epistemological-crisis America's epistemological crisis - Dan Williams]
# Elite Failures and Populist Backlash – Dan Williams (opinion essay) 
# [https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/elite-failures-and-populist-backlash Elite failures and populist backlash - Dan Williams]
# The Expert Class Is Failing, and So Is Biden’s Presidency – Nate Silver (opinion newsletter) 
# [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]
# It’s The Epistemology, Stupid – Sam Khan (opinion newsletter) 
# [https://samkahn.substack.com/p/its-the-epistemology-stupid It's The Epistemology, Stupid - Sam Khan]
# The Reckoning – Sam Harris (opinion newsletter) 
# [https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-reckoning The Reckoning - Sam Harris]
# Why The Media Moves in Unison – Yascha Mounk (opinion newsletter) 
# [https://www.persuasion.community/p/why-the-media-moves-in-unison Why The Media Moves in Unison - Yascha Mounk]
# 75% of Psychology Claims Are False – Lee Jussim (opinion newsletter summarizing peer-reviewed work) 
# [https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/75-of-psychology-claims-are-false 75% of Psychology Claims are False - Lee Jussim]
# The Hard Truth: Americans Don’t Trust the News Media – Washington Post opinion piece (Jeff Bezos) 
# [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]
# Elite Misinformation Is an Underrated Problem – Matthew Yglesias (opinion newsletter) 
# [https://www.slowboring.com/p/elite-misinformation-is-an-underrated - Elite misinformation is an underrated problem - Matthew Yglesias]
# The Fake News About Fake News – Boston Review (magazine feature) 
# [https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-fake-news-about-fake-news/ The Fake News about Fake News - The Boston Review]
# How To Know Who To Trust, Potomac Plane Crash Edition – Jesse Singal (opinion newsletter) 
# [https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/how-to-know-who-to-trust-potomac How To Know Who To Trust, Potomac Plane Crash Edition - Jess Singal]
# When The New York Times Lost Its Way – The Economist (magazine feature) 
# [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]
# I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust – The Free Press (first-person essay) 
# [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.]
# Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? – Steve Stewart-Williams (opinion newsletter)
# [https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/should-scientific-organizations-endorse Should Scientific Organizations Endorse Political Candidates? - Steve Stewart-Williams]


== Question ==
== Question ==
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