What is the epistemic crisis?

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What is the “epistemic crisis”?

The phrase refers to a widespread breakdown in the social systems we once relied on to decide what is true. Writers describe it as a loss of trust in expertise, journalism, science, and government, accompanied by the sense that society no longer agrees on basic facts or on who should be believed [1] [2] [3] [4] [17]. The crisis is not just an abundance of misinformation; it is a collapse of the institutions and norms that previously filtered misinformation out of public life.

Key features usually cited are:

Polarization of information sources.
Erosion of reproducibility in science.
Politically-motivated messaging by media, government, and professional bodies.
Public uncertainty about how to evaluate expertise.

What caused the crisis?

Most authors point to a convergence of structural, technological, and cultural forces:

Elite and institutional failures

  • High-profile mistakes—e.g., pre-Iraq-War intelligence, the 2008 financial crisis, shifting public-health messaging—damaged confidence that elites are competent or honest [3] [6] [9].  
  • When failure is followed by a lack of accountability, the legitimacy of the expert class erodes [4] [9].

Media incentives and homogeneity

  • Legacy outlets face economic pressure to chase engagement, producing more opinionated and ideologically uniform coverage [7] [12].  
  • “Media swarm” dynamics mean many outlets repeat the same narrative, limiting corrective mechanisms [7].

Social-media amplification

  • Platforms reward attention, not accuracy, allowing errors by elites or amateurs to spread equally fast [1] [10].

Politicization of knowledge-producing institutions

  • Scientific societies, universities, and public broadcasters are perceived as taking partisan stances [14] [15] [13].  
  • A recent experimental study finds that explicit political cues reduce trust even among ideologically aligned audiences [14].

Failures inside science itself

  • Large-scale replication projects suggest that a majority of published psychology findings do not replicate [8] [18], leading the public to doubt other disciplines as well.  
  • RAND’s “Truth Decay” report argues that the line between opinion and fact has blurred in both scholarship and media [17].

There is disagreement about emphasis: Kling and Williams stress institutional competence [1] [3]; Sam Harris focuses on moral and psychological factors [6]; Boston Review writers argue that worries about “fake news” are overstated compared with structural media problems [10].

Examples of elite failures that fed the crisis

Psychology replication crisis (2015-present). A landmark Science paper found that only ~36 % of key results replicated [18]; subsequent reviews suggest the figure is closer to 25 % [8].

Iraq War intelligence (2002-2003). Dan Williams lists it as an archetype of expert failure that seeded populist backlash [3].

2008 financial crisis. Nate Silver and Williams cite regulators’ inability to foresee systemic risk as a blow to technocratic credibility [3] [4].

COVID-19 communication (2020-2022). Yglesias and Kling argue that shifting mask guidance, school-closure debates, and suppression of lab-leak discussion exemplified “elite misinformation” [1] [9].

Media self-inflicted wounds.

 – The New York Times’ internal culture clashes and narrative-driven reporting [12].  
 – NPR editor Uri Berliner’s account of journalistic groupthink [13].  
 – Bezos observes historically low trust in newspapers in general [9].

Politicized scientific advocacy. Stewart-Williams warns that professional societies’ candidate endorsements reduce perceived neutrality [15].

Timeline of the public discourse

1990s – early 2000s

Cable news and the early Web fragment information channels.

2003-2008

Iraq War intelligence failures and the financial crisis begin long-term declines in trust in government measured by Pew [16].

2010-2015

Social media becomes dominant. “Truth Decay” identified by RAND (research began 2014, report 2018) [17].
2015: Reproducibility Project publishes in Science [18].

2016-2017

US election spurs focus on “fake news.” Boston Review critiques the panic [10].

2020-2022

COVID-19 intensifies scrutiny of expert advice; authors such as Kling, Khan, and Yglesias publish pieces framing events as an epistemic crisis [1] [5] [9].

2023-2024

Nate Silver, Dan Williams, and others argue the “expert class is failing” [3] [4].
Studies quantify effects of politicization on trust [14].
Internal critiques emerge from within media (Economist on NYT, Berliner on NPR) [12] [13].

Public-discourse highlights

The debate has shifted from blaming “disinformation” on the fringe to spotlighting elite-level errors [9].
Some commentators (Harris, Silver) still defend the possibility of competent technocracy if insulated from politics [4] [6]; others (Khan, Williams) believe the knowledge-production system itself needs redesign [3] [5].
Across perspectives, most agree that rebuilding trust requires transparency, methodological rigor, and visible accountability.

Summary

The epistemic crisis is a multi-cause breakdown in the authority of traditional knowledge-making institutions. Elite failures—scientific non-replication, policy blunders, and politicized media—serve as salient evidence that fuels public distrust. While authors differ on which failure looms largest, they converge on the diagnosis: without credible mechanisms for establishing what is true, policy and democracy both suffer.

Sources

Peer-reviewed Science

Data-driven Analysis

Investigative Journalism & Commentary

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?