What is the epistemic crisis?

What is the “epistemic crisis”?

The phrase refers to a perceived breakdown in the systems a society relies on to determine what is true. Symptoms include: declining trust in legacy media, scientific bodies, universities, and other traditional authorities [2] [4] [10] growing belief that these authorities not only make honest mistakes but systematically mislead or gate-keep information [3] [6] a public sphere where partisan narratives, motivated reasoning and algorithm-driven amplification often outrun careful fact-finding [1] [7]

Arnold Kling is sceptical that the crisis is wholly new—he argues that pluralistic democracies have always contained “competing information factions,” but social media has made the clash more visible [1]. Dan Williams, Nate Silver and others reply that recent institutional failures have been unusually conspicuous, producing a qualitative shift in public confidence [2] [3] [4].

What caused the crisis?

Authors lay the blame on overlapping factors.

Elite-level mistakes and reversals – High-profile errors (see next section) undermined the presumption that credentialed experts deserve deference [3] [4] [10].
Homogeneity and groupthink inside major institutions – Political and cultural monocultures reduce error-checking, so entire newsrooms or scientific bodies can move “in unison” and be wrong together [7] [14] [15].
Structural media change – The internet removed geographic scarcity and economic bundling, rewarding speed, outrage and in-group signalling over slow verification [2] [12].
Replication and methodological crises in science – Psychology, biomedicine and other fields reported failure rates of 50–75 percent in replication attempts, tarnishing the image of “settled science” [8] [16].
Epistemic overreach – Scientific or journalistic organisations endorse policy or moral positions that outrun their data, turning empirical authorities into partisan actors [5] [17].

Examples of elite failures commonly cited as triggers

2003: U.S. and allied intelligence claimed Iraq possessed WMD; post-invasion inspections found none, damaging trust in both intelligence agencies and the prestige press that echoed them [2] [3]. 2008: Financial regulators and leading economists failed to foresee—or quickly explain—the global financial crisis, prompting doubts about technocratic expertise [3] [10]. 2015-18: The “replication crisis” revealed that a majority of canonical psychology findings could not be reproduced [8]. 2016: Media data analysts assigned extremely low probabilities to a Trump victory, then offered few institutional mea-culpas after the surprise result [4]. 2020-21: Early public-health guidance against masking, followed by mandates, plus shifting statements on school closures and the lab-leak hypothesis, created a sense that official messaging tracked politics rather than evidence [4] [6] [10]. 2020-23: Twitter Files, Facebook moderation leaks and whistle-blower accounts showed coordinated removal or throttling of content later judged credible (e.g., Hunter Biden laptop, adverse-event discussions) [6] [10] [15]. 2023-24: Internal critiques at the New York Times and NPR alleged a culture that punishes dissent and conflates activism with reporting, further eroding cross-partisan trust [14] [15].

Timeline of the public discourse

2016 – “Fake news” enters mainstream vocabulary; Boston Review warns that the panic itself can be exploited by elites to police speech [12]. 2017–2019 – Replication-crisis papers and conferences proliferate; term “epistemic crisis” begins appearing in blogs and think-tank pieces [8]. 2020 – COVID-19 controversies supercharge the discussion; Substack and podcast boom provides alternate venues for expert dissent. Mar 2021 – Arnold Kling publishes “An Epistemic Crisis?” arguing that the problem is less disinformation than “warring epistemic tribes” [1]. Jan 2022 – Dan Williams’ “America’s epistemological crisis” foregrounds elite error as the key driver [2]. Jun 2023 – Nate Silver’s essay “The expert class is failing—and so” makes the issue mainstream among data journalists [4]. Dec 2023 – The Economist’s feature on the New York Times institutional culture signals that even establishment outlets recognise the problem [14]. Apr 2024 – NPR editor Uri Berliner publishes whistle-blower account; public media trust debate intensifies [15]. May 2024 – Matt Yglesias’ “Elite misinformation is an underrated problem” expands the conversation beyond conservative circles [10].

Conflicting assessments

Kling maintains that the crisis is “epistemic” mainly in perception; institutions have always erred but now face relentless digital scrutiny [1]. Williams, Silver and Harris counter that error frequency and the refusal to self-correct mark a genuine decline in epistemic reliability [2] [4] [6]. Kahn argues that no amount of fact-checking will suffice unless society clarifies “who owes deference to whom” and why—that is, we need shared epistemic norms more than new platforms [5].

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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?