What is the epistemic crisis?

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What is the epistemic crisis?

“Epistemic crisis” is the phrase commentators use for a broad breakdown in society’s ability to agree on what is true and why. Arnold Kling defines it as a situation in which “we no longer share trusted processes for separating knowledge from opinion” [5]. Dan Williams adds that the breakdown is visible when “large factions reject not only specific facts but the very institutions and methods tasked with producing facts” [6].

Peer-reviewed and survey data reinforce the diagnosis. RAND’s Truth Decay project documents a “diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life” [4], while Pew shows public trust in the U.S. federal government hovering near historic lows since the mid-2010s [3]. The problem is not merely disagreement but a failure of the normal epistemic machinery—scientific replication, journalistic fact-checking, expert consensus—to command assent.

What is driving the crisis?

Politicization of knowledge-producing institutions

  • A recent field experiment shows that when a scientific body is seen as politically aligned, trust falls even among ideologically sympathetic respondents [1].  
  • Steve Stewart-Williams argues that explicit political endorsements by professional organizations hasten this erosion [19].

Reproducibility problems inside science

  • The Open Science Collaboration found that only ~36 % of 100 high-profile psychology findings could be reproduced [2].  Lee Jussim popularizes the result, warning that “75 % of psychology claims are false” [12].

Information glut and fragmentation

  • RAND identifies “the explosion of communication channels” as a driver of Truth Decay, making it easy for users to select congenial facts [4].  Sam Kahn calls this “epistemic disintermediation” [9].

Media herding and reputational incentives

  • Yascha Mounk observes that legacy outlets “move in unison,” producing monoculture narratives that lose credibility when they miss emerging facts [11].  
  • Nate Silver ties declining trust to an “expert class” rewarded more for expressing group consensus than for being right [8].

Feedback loop of distrust

  • Pew finds that as trust drops, citizens discount corrective information, deepening polarization [3].  Kling labels this a “state of mutual epistemic sabotage” [5].

Commentators disagree on relative weight: Harris emphasizes social-media amplification of falsehoods [10], while Williams stresses institutional self-inflicted wounds [6]. Both acknowledge a multi-cause dynamic.

Examples of elite failures that intensified the crisis

Iraq WMD intelligence (2002-2003) – Used by RAND as an archetype of expert over-confidence that later collapsed [4].

2008 financial crisis – Widespread failure of regulators, ratings agencies, and economists to foresee systemic risk; cited by Williams as the moment “technocratic credibility cracked” [7].

Reproducibility crisis in psychology (2011-present) – Empirical exposure of non-replicable flagship findings [2][12].

2016 U.S. presidential polling miss – Silver notes that most forecasters conveyed unwarranted certainty, fueling a populist backlash against “data journalism” [8].

Early COVID-19 messaging (2020) – Shifts on masks, school closures, and lab-leak hypotheses became emblematic of what Yglesias calls “elite misinformation” [14].

Media mishandling of the Hunter Biden laptop story (2020) – Mounk and The Economist document newsroom groupthink and later corrections [11][17].

NPR internal critique (2024) – Senior editor Uri Berliner argues that ideological homogeneity alienated half the audience [18].

Each episode sharpened public suspicion that institutional gatekeepers are fallible, biased, or both, reinforcing the crisis cycle.

Timeline of key moments in the public discourse

2003 – Iraq WMD intelligence failure fuels first wave of anti-establishment skepticism [4].

2010-2014 – Blogs and social media accelerate “epistemic fragmentation” noted by RAND, while the term “Truth Decay” gains currency [4].

2015-2016 – Reproducibility crisis formalised in Science article (Aug 2015) [2]. 2016 election shocks polls and pundits [8], popularising “epistemic crisis” terminology [5][6].

2020 – COVID-19 policy reversals and information wars mainstream the phrase. Harris’s podcast series on “The Reckoning” (Oct 2020) frames the situation as a social-media pathology [10].

2021-2023 – Substack writers (Kling, Williams, Yglesias, Silver) debate whether elite bias or populist disinformation is the bigger culprit [5][6][14][8].

2024 – Pew updates its long-term trust series (June 2024) showing no rebound [3]. NPR and New York Times insiders publish self-critiques [18][17], keeping the crisis on the front page.

Current state of the debate

There is convergence that the epistemic crisis is real and multifactorial. Disagreement persists on whether elite reform (greater transparency, methodological rigor) or audience reform (media literacy, algorithmic changes) should come first. Some analysts, such as Sam Harris [10], foreground the role of social-media architecture, while Arnold Kling [5] and Dan Williams [6] stress institutional trustworthiness. RAND’s policy prescriptions focus on both supply-side (improving expert communication) and demand-side (civic education) measures [4].

Summary

An epistemic crisis exists when shared mechanisms for establishing truth lose authority. It is driven by politicization of institutions, scientific reproducibility failures, information-ecosystem changes, and repeated elite misjudgments. Episodes from WMD intelligence to COVID-19 messaging have compounded distrust, producing a feedback loop documented in survey and experimental data. Scholars, journalists, and commentators agree on the severity but contest the primary cause and best remedy of the crisis.

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?