The subtle whitewash of anti-science activism
Editorial choices to make the ugly palatable for the mainstream
Background:
The Atlantic released an article called “The Banality of Bad-Faith in Science” by Benjamin Mazer, an assistant professor of pathology and occasional contributor to the Atlantic. In his latest piece, he takes to three recent scientific controversies, the self-described censorship for a climate science article by Dr. Patrick Brown, the purposeful omission of contradictory data by Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, and the alleged illegitimacy surrounding the publication of the “Proximal origins” paper by Prof. Kristian Andersen and his co-authors.
Mazer claims that all three cases of represent a novel type of scientific misconduct in the public’s mind, which he called the “crime of insincerity” or bad faith. According to his retelling of current controversies involving scientists, Brown is a whistleblower calling out the institutional forces driving his own insincerity, Andersen insincerely tweaked his conclusions to suit editorial expectations, and Ladapo’s conduct is no worse than these and other thousands of bad-faith publications, just receiving more scrutiny. He then goes on to argue that this type of insincerity is actually baked into the scientific publication system, but this should not worry us. Not every publication needs to be heartfelt, we just abuse sincerity as a proxy of trustworthiness. But as long as the data are not fabricated, the sincerity of the author’s beliefs matters very little, according to Mazer. This is a daring proposition in itself. Can he substantiate it based on these controversies though? Do we overreact to insincerity?
And maybe more importantly: After years of scientific criticism of publish-or-perish incentives causing a tired yawn in popular media, why are editors, bloggers, disinformation spreaders and mainstream news magazines suddenly coming together with renewed interest in the topic?
Could it be that editorial decisions to play these real issues up now might not entirely follow out of academic interest, but rather to justify their stances on certain popular anti-science myths of the day?
Let’s approach these questions methodically.
The problem with Mazer’s facts
“Do scientists lie? Let’s review the recent evidence.” — Benjamin Mazer, The Atlantic
Goes the dramatic opener of Mazer’s article. First, let me start with the acknowledgement that science is imperfect, that scientists are humans with flaws, that incentives and especially scientific publishing cultures are quite in need of reform. This is well understood by scientists, and this topic has been a passion project for many academics, open-source advocates, and science communicators (including myself) for some time.
As scientists, it is difficult for us to be anything but protective about the scientific process and the inner workings of science, especially since any acknowledgement of issues will be used by enemies of science to distort, discredit and sow distrust about the scientific enterprise as a whole. But as a wise man said, ‘it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring’. So let us hold a candle towards the darker corners of today’s scientific enterprise. — Philipp Markolin & Laura de Vargas Roditi, How corruptive forces are chewing on science from the inside, 2018
These darker corners include profound criticisms of the oligopoly of publishers, the publish-or-perish system, and resulting unethical behaviors such as selective reporting, p-hacking, HARKing (hypothesis after results known), even outright falsification or fraud. All of these exist and pose a real problem to the scientific process, and solutions are not always easy to come by, albeit they do exist. But does that mean scientists are driven to lie? Let’s review the factual basis of the case studies Mazer offers.
Part 1: Taking a clout-chasing shyster by his word
Mazer starts his article by uncritically repeating the claims of Dr. Patrick Brown, a former Greenpeace activist turned climate skeptic, who’s recent media stunts have garnered dramatic attention in certain alternative media ecosystems. Brown asserts without evidence that he felt forced into selective reporting of data and alarmism in order to get his paper into a prestigious journal; and that he is basically blowing the whistle on this institutional “directive” from climate alarmists that required him to do bad science. It is truly “they” who had him downplay other causes of wildfire and overplay the role of climate change.
A dramatic testimony, the only problem: The peer reviews are publicly available and the facts contradict his claims; the reviewers actually demanded the authors to limit their claims and rewrite the manuscript to clarify its limited scope of analysis. One reviewer specifically even asked them to address alternative causes of wild fires, which Patrick declined because it would be too difficult to do for them. If there are any institutional pressures on climate scientists to push a one-sided alarmist narrative, this was not an example of it, but quite the opposite.
Brown, who in the years between submission and final publication of the article has left academia has since joined the climate science sceptic “Breakthrough institute”, one of those dubiously funded NGOs pretending to be academic institutions (they are not), while serving very specific ideological interests.
Academic apologists for energy profiteers can concoct highly sophisticated ways to both “acknowledge the science” and quell public anxiety. Brown does not deny anthropogenic climate change, he merely argues that capitalist “resilience,” is more than a match for warming, and sets about earnestly to cherry-pick a couple of out of context graphs and charts to buttress a rather indefensible position. — Phil Wilson, Resiliance.org
Brown’s current rise to alt-media fame and re-telling seems to be at least inspired by the valid criticism he once received from the peer-review at the time, turning an acknowledged weakness of his research identified by others into an opportunity for personal myth making.
When he left John Hopkins and joined the California based Breakthrough institute, he appears to have retrospectively fabricated, best we can tell today, a salacious “whistleblower” story, which is, surprise surprise, somehow aligned exactly with the overt politics and activism of his current financial benefactors and their associated media ecosystem. What a coincidence.
I’d argue that there is certainly some type of insincerity at play, but I see its roots clearly associated with an individual and moral failure, much rather than any type of systemic or academic one.
However, Benjamin Mazer seems to take Brown’s testimony of systemic failure mostly at face value, rather than critically question and compare it with available facts.
“If he’s right, then peer review — once a means of making scientific work balanced and consensus-driven — now serves to stifle disagreements, and deferring to it would be a form of surrender to establishment elites.”— Benjamin Mazer, The Atlantic
because it allows him a great ramp into his relativizing argument:
“Every study is strategic, though. Each requires choices about how to design the analysis and explain the results. Yes, Brown made his choices with a particular conclusion in mind, one he thought would be acceptable to scientific gatekeepers.” — Benjamin Mazer, The Atlantic
Instead of condemning Patrick Brown’s self-serving media stunt and unethical conduct (no matter if genuinely felt at the time or retrospectively reframed), Mazer elevates them to a sort of academic peccadillo, the equivalent of a celebrity sex scandal that actually is all too human given this conducive environment. Who would not understand, right? He re-emphasizes that point with a personal anecdote to really make it stick:
As an academic physician, I’ve contributed to papers for medical journals and fielded the demands of peer reviewers, however parochial they may be. I can’t say that I’ve always held the line on my own, sincere beliefs. I’ve toned down criticism of professional colleagues, for example, and like […] Brown, I’ve hewed to the preferred phrasing of my editors. — Benjamin Mazer, The Atlantic
Alright, we get it, scientists are human and subject to incentives and pressures… but responding to varied criticisms and trying to accommodate dissenting voices during finalizing a paper is on average positive because it prevents echo chamber effects and knowledge siloes. Are these adjustments most scientists do really on par with Patrick Brown’s actual actions? Or did he see an opportunity for self-aggrandizement with lofty profiles about his heroic whistleblowing?
I believe most scientists would not align themselves with conspiratorial climate science deniers to tell politically charged fairy tails on topics of public controversy to boost their own profile.
A small minority of credentialed experts have, in time-honored fashion, always been willing to exchange their reputations for the spoils that corporate strategists and libertarian think tanks are eager to pay — Phil Wilson, Resiliance.org
Either way, the trust of Mazer’s argument was that institutional pressures drove Brown to be insincere in service of climate alarmism, and that is entirely unsubstantiated.
Part 2: Defaming the integrity of a politically targeted scientist
For Mazer, Brown’s actions seem one and the same with what he next offers as another example of author insincerity under systemic pressure:
“Another, similar story came out in June, during the congressional inquiry into COVID’s origins: The language of a crucial, early paper ruling out the “lab-leak theory” had been altered during peer review to make its conclusions more robust, investigators found.” — Benjamin Mazer, The Atlantic
Now the background of the proximal origin paper has already been described by me on a different occasion, based on extensive research, leaked documents, hourlong interviews and multiple primary sources:
To sum up, there was no wrongdoing, no interference, no agenda, just scientists doing their jobs following the evidence. The conspiratorial energy driving controversy surrounding this paper is entirely baseless. However, what I have not yet explained is the little snippet of why the proximal origin authors changed their wording to stronger rule out the lab leak theory during peer review? Mazer claimed that under pressure from peer-reviewers and editors, as well as personal insincerity on the side of Andersen, he elected to “make some the language punchier”. Sounds possible, but is that factual?
The next part is not really public knowledge, but happy to give a little exlusive on this.
The change in wording had to do with a crucial piece of scientific evidence that arrived during the peer-review period. Namely the discovery of the bat virus RmYN02 in Yunnan by Weifeng Shi and team. Not only was RmYN02 a close relative of SARS-CoV-2, but it also contained a partial polybasic cleavage site that strongly hinted that the FCS in SARS-CoV-2 had a natural origin. Here you have its impact on proximal origins in prose:
Because in early 2020, RmYN02 had another explosive genetic feature that would shine a light on the origins of the pandemic and dramatically change the minds of the “proximal origin”-virologists in the West, as well as the minds of the wider scientific community. SARS-CoV-2 had seemed so very special because of its `suspicious` insertion of a furin cleavage site in the very narrow S1/S2 region of the spike gene. It was a bit of a fluke. No other previously sampled relative had these extra amino acids in that position, so any alignment and comparison to other viruses made this sequence stand out like a Llama in a flock of sheep. Until RmYN02, that is. This bat virus contained a rather reminiscent insertion in that very same position as well. And while RmYN02`s insertion did not form a full polybasic cleavage site, it showed that within what was supposed to be a flock of sheep, there were at least some odd Alpacas too. Since those early days, we have found all kinds of insertions that made it clear in hindsight that the FCS was indeed not that unexpected. We constantly underestimate what diversity nature can come up with. RmYN02 was the first hard clue toward unraveling the mystery of the FCS and a strong argument for natural evolution, rather than human design, being its originator.
News traveled fast among experts. It might not be surprising at this point, but Weifeng Shi had good contacts to Western scientists. He had been doing a sabbatical in 2017 — an academic semester abroad — with none other than Eddie Holmes. Since the start of the outbreak, the two have been involved in a different project about early patient genome sequences together with George Gao from the Chinese CDC. On the eve of February 24th, Weifeng reached out with their manuscript to Eddie Holmes for discussion about this one bat virus they found in Yunnan and what it could tell about the evolutionary history of SARS-CoV-2. He sent Eddie the draft of their analysis. Already primed from his ongoing work and discussions about the proximal origin paper, Eddie immediately spotted the partial insertions at the S1/S2 boundary. Hours later, he messaged his co-authors the early draft of Weifang’s paper with just one prompt: “Discuss”.
“Holy crap — that’s amazing”, Robert Garry could not help himself blurting out first. Kristian Andersen, still dogged about keeping open the possibility of a lab leak, said that this was no polybasic cleavage site, but it for sure provided a mechanism for how the FCS came about.
“I think this lends pretty strong support for an animal origin of the ‘confusing’ features of the virus [SARS-COV-2]… it shows that the virus likes to “mess around’’ in this part of its genome, that is pretty important knowledge.” Then Andrew Rambaut weighed in about how one could get to a furin cleavage site using RmYN02 by just simulating a few deletions. Eddie explained that RmYN02 is the closest ancestor for certain parts of its genome, so clearly some recombination — the exchange of genetic elements between viruses — was going on with SARS-CoV-2. After a bit of back and forth, Kristian Andersen again: “It does not rule out lab infection/release … however, there are now no more ‘mysteries’ to explain… we see the optimized RBD in pangolins and parts of the furin site in bats (which is pretty cool!!!)” Eddie Holmes concurred: “I am now strongly in favor of a natural origin”.
Soon after, they would submit a revised version of their proximal origins paper to the journal Nature Medicine being more firm in their conclusions. RmYN02 was, to the best the experts could tell, a major contribution to figuring out the much larger story behind how SARS-CoV-2 came about.
… and that is it. During peer review, new evidence arose that required the authors to further adjust their conclusions. Some abstract systemic pressures, again, had nothing to do with the authors strengthening their wording on the implausibility of a laboratory origin of the virus. The only thing that would have been “insincere” on the scientists part, to come back to address Mazer’s accusations, is to not adjust the conclusion in light of new evidence.
“To see our research, and my work as a scientist, so deeply misrepresented by the Atlantic is disappointing to me.” — Prof. Kristian Andersen
Lastly, and maybe most abhorrently, Mazer turned his attention to yet another controversy to throw in the mix as well.
Part 3: Trivializing scientific misconduct of manipulators
“Truthfully, his behavior may be dangerous, but it is not all that unusual.” — Benjamin Mazer
I really do not want to waste my breath on a clear and shut case of anti-science activism by a political manipulator, which is Ron DeSantis’s sycophantic lickspittle Dr. Josepth Ladapo. He has been a contrarian on just about every science-based action with respect to the pandemic. He was a supporter of the “let-them-die-working-the-machines” billionaire-sponsored Great Barrington Declaration, he was against masks and of course, he is one of the US most prominent anti-vaccine officials. Earlier this year, he made headlines by publishing a purposefully manipulated study on vaccine safety that he personally altered to fit the desired political narrative. Deeply unethical, of course, it prompted a public outcry and subsequent investigation that found him engaged in “careless and contentious research practice” and omission of critical data.
“In summary, our committee has found that Dr. Ladapo’s guidance is based on a finding that is likely insignificant once appropriate statistical corrections are made for multiple tests, fails to compare risks of vaccination with its benefits in terms of averted COVID-19 deaths, and fails to acknowledge generally the societal benefit of reduced illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths provided by vaccination for all eligible Floridians. Indeed, based on an analysis that is seriously flawed for the reasons enumerated above, Dr. Ladapo makes policy recommendations that are in direct conflict with those of every other major U.S. scientific and public health organization, which are based on published studies that contradict his finding.” — University of Florida’s Faculty Council Committee on Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccination
Or as Mazer put it:
“Ladapo has faced more scrutiny than some other vaccine skeptics because of his influential public post and affiliation with Governor Ron DeSantis.” […] Truthfully, his behavior may be dangerous, but it is not all that unusual. A large swath of academic literature could reasonably be described as “careless and contentious.” The blowback to Ladapo’s work — and to Andersen’s and Brown’s — has more to do with ongoing political conflicts than any specific, egregious details of its presentation. — Benjamin Mazer, The Atlantic
So Ladapo is just a victim of extra scrutiny because of his political position, while his unethical conduct is pretty much in line with the conduct of other researchers? This is a blatant false equivalency that I find very hard to swallow. Ladapo created and manipulated a study for the express purpose of an anti-science agenda, as justification for pre-determined policies that are not only unsupported by scientific evidence but it stringent contradiction to the scientific consensus. But let’s try to be charitable and say that in order to advance his extraordinary argument that Ladapo’s behavior is not unusual within science, Mazer would have to provide extraordinary evidence.
Summary
Mazer is grouping three controversies on three scientific issues together as if they were part of the same underlying phenomenon; in short, bad incentives in science which give room or reward bad behavior of scientists.
However, the underlying facts of these three controversies do not support his premise. Nor is the alleged systemic insincerity of scientists at the root (or even a contributor) of these larger public controversies around climate publications, vaccine safety and pandemic origin science.
But for the sake of argument, let us assume his premise would have been substantiated, and that the controversies are in fact a public response to the “banality of bad faith” baked into science. Should we just make our peace with that reality, as Mazer suggests?
The problem with Mazer’s motivated reasoning
I believe that there are systemic problems in science arising from various bad incentives for publishing. Not everybody doing research is honest. We currently have a gameable environment built for humble idealists that lacks strong mechanisms to thwart or punish those who break ethical or professional rules. Science is still largely based on reputation, but in the information age where the most shameless attention-seekers thrive, reputational repercussions have limited effectiveness. Even producing fraudulent papers is not punishable by law except for in dramatic cases of patient harm or investor fraud. Instead of dealing with the grim reality of our insufficient control mechanisms of unethical scientists that go beyond reputation, Mazer’s advances quite a different argument: Insincerity is actually not a big deal.
“Is scientific insincerity really a problem? Facts, as the saying goes, don’t care about our feelings; science is supposed to be the land of facts. Data are presented, discussed, confirmed, or discredited — all on their own terms. Belief has nothing to do with it, and forensically dissecting an author’s motivations has little practical value.” — Benjamin Mazer, The Atlantic
I agree that science is about evidence. If unethical scientists produce false or fraudulent studies, if carelessness or publication pressures drive interpretations beyond what the data support, this will be found out eventually by other scientists. Science is self-correcting, over time, unreproducible results, false causations, unsupported hypotheses will be challenged and replaced. The issue resources and speed, and this is why Mazer’s argument is naïve and counterproductive for the disinformation age.
When a fraudulent study is easily fabricated, but debunking takes ten times the effort, an asymmetry arises. When convenient falsehoods travel around the world fast, whereas their correction does not even make it out the door further than two steps before the next news cycle starts, another asymmetry takes its place. The deck is stacked against careful science, and the commodification of information into a digital product has created an abundance of junk information in our informational ecosystems.
We currently live in a noise-polluted information environment, and this deprives citizens of options to figure out what is real and what is true for themselves when it comes to the above scientific controversies. All they have left is to judge the trustworthiness of scientific information is the trustworthiness of the messenger. This is the underlying reason why citizens feel attached to use the sincerity of scientists as a proxy for the reliability of their science.
When Mazer argues that figuring out motivations has little practical value, he devalues a useful proxy for non-experts and outsources the task of assessing the veracity of facts on complicated scientific matters to citizens over domain experts.
This is bad advise, because “do your own research” usually does not favor inconvenient truths over compelling falsehoods. It favors those who have the means or power to control the attention of the masses.
Don’t get me wrong. It would be great if citizens had the time, energy and expertise to intelligently and independently assess the factual merits of scientific controversies. But if a quack doctor wants to sell you an allegedly repressed miracle cure against COVID, you do not spend years studying virology, pharmacology and medicine to see if he has a point, you get a second (and third) opinion from somebody you trust and who has spend those years studying.
Trust remains important in science, that is why artificially created scientific controversies that target scientists and scientific processes with an array of information warfare tactics are so corrosive to science and society.
Ultimately, this is why I believe obscuring the formative role of anti-science activism in these scientific controversies is not only rewriting history, but by framing them as “Banalities of bad faith” from scientists, Mazer’s article has created a harmful whitewash of their true nature.
Let’s jump into the final section:
The problem with Mazer’s blind spots
Mazer created a persuasive story; one where scientists are flawed humans embedded in dysfunctional institutions and out for their own profits, just like you and me.
For me, the real scandal is not that Mazer wrote an unsubstantiated hot take about a topic he did not understand enough. The scandal is to see it published and amplified by mainstream news media that should uphold editorial and journalistic standards.
Why did the Atlantic decide to go with his article and forego any fact-checking? Especially in the case of Prof. Kristian Andersen, the assertion of Mazer that he acted insincerely when publishing proximal origins is not only not factual, it is a direct result of a GOP-led disinformation and character assassination campaign.
“Mazer is making several defamatory statements […] and assigning motives to my actions — actions he has no insights to. He never contacted me before making these false statements […] and I have also not been contacted by any fact checkers associated with the Atlantic.” — Prof. Kristian Andersen (personal communication)
The Atlantic is a serious center-left magazine characterized by well-sourced and fact checked reporting that is broadly read worldwide. What value did the editors see in this op-ed? Is it because Mazer tries to make a very nuanced point about how publication incentives can distort science? Or that we humans care too much about these inevitable insincerities from scientists? (which, as argued above, have become about the only proxy normal people can rely on in our noise-polluted world). Or is it because these are the type of palatable, centrist arguments too many editors in the public intelligentsia on the center left actually want to read and hear?
While Mazer’s article and the Atlantic was singled out here almost arbitrarily, based on my specialized knowledge about the underlying facts, these types of centrist-y, calm and supposed unbiased op-eds about the flaws of science and scientists are not hard to find. There has been a noticeable trend in mainstream media, from New York Times to the popular chattering classes on X-Twitter.
All of them seem to have formed a consensus that scientists are to be treated as some kind of political interest group that is out for their own gain.
But too few people ask: Why do these ideas really come from?
Researchers of varied backgrounds, such as vaccine advocacy, climate science or political extremism, have noted that these anti-science narratives often start on social media, in the rightwing bloggosphere, on conspiracy myth podcasts or similar extremist fringe outlets before they cascade into the mainstream. Disinformation campaigns, well-financed information combatants and persuasion operations explicitly aim to change public discourse towards political ends, a tactic sometimes refered to as “metapolitics”.
New Right metapolitics is a challenge for discourse research as its proponents possess reflexive knowledge of the discursive arenas in which they engage. — Felix Schilk, University of Tübingen, Metapolitics as Programmatic Storytelling
The goal of these actors is usually to seed specific memes in susceptible information ecosystems, finance the amplification of specific story narratives either directly or via proxies such as influencers. By creating enough buzz, attention and momentum online, they aim to force the hand of mainstream media to talk about these topics, but through a lens and Overton window they covertly shaped. (more on that at a later time)
In our case, once the public perception was created that scientists like Andersen were insincere, that self-mythologizing whistleblowers like Brown are to be taken at their word, or that political activists like Ladapo just engage in everyday deception of science, mainstream media is forced into a reactionary role:
Editors either have to tell their readers that what they believe is baseless bullshit, or come up with a framing to make these beliefs more palatable to audiences (and to oneself).
My worry and speculation is that Mazer’s article was just a very satisfying hot take for editors (who also saw their relevance and influence challenged by science during the pandemic as well) to close that gap between personal beliefs, audience demand and journalistic self-image. Mazer, as an academic, is a great voice to instrumentalize by media manipulators, because he has the credentials and beliefs to credibly point out problems within science.
Mazer draws a picture of problems in science that intelligent people can adapt with good conscience to justify their belief in anti-science controversies.
Yet by conflating the problems of scientific publishing and incentives with popular misconceptions artificially created through genuine disinformation campaigns (e.g. on climate, origin and vaccine science), Mazer does a disservice to both problems.
Equating self-serving personal manipulators (Brown, Ladapo) to politically targeted scientists (Andersen), he minimizes the real life consequences faced by the latter while dismissing the unethical conduct of credentialed activists.
“To say I’m pissed is an understatement. Comparing a domain expert doing the actual scientific work that has allowed us to much better understand the pandemic — unlike the many charlatans in that space — to somebody like Ladapo is just unbelievable.” — Prof. Kristian Andersen
By not doing his homework and failing to recognize the nature of each specific “controversy”, Mazer created more than just a false equivalence. He has created a moral injustice; dismissing the role of influence campaigns in shaping public perception and creating a sanitized history of these controversies that puts the flawed “scientific system” at its center.
This is infuriating to me, who has been a vocal advocate to correct the actual faults in that publishing incentive system. We need intelligent advocacy for improvement, not motivated conflation with popular myths to raise awareness. Awareness (and honestly, self-reflection) would be needed on the wider anti-science context and instrumentalization of certain types of articles.
He aided the amplification and whitewash of these controversies for “polite society” and the mainstream. By casting them as cases of personal incentivized insincerities that are common in academia and mostly banal, he obscures that these controversies have their roots in the unacceptable (anti-science political activism, climate denial, vaccine and biotechnology fearmongering, disaster profiteering, conspiratorial ideation). These controversies are not caused by the banalities of everyday bad faith in academia. As a result, Mazer leaves readers with a muddy explanation of why these controversies exist and equips anti-science media manipulators and influential commentators with some whitewashed talking points of broken incentives in academia.
The real harm stemming from his article is that despite the lack of factual basis, all the mind-bending conflations by Mazer created a persuasive story. One where scientists are flawed humans embedded in dysfunctional institutions and out for their own profits, just like you and me. No higher ideals, no professional ethos, no working towards the public good, just good old self-interest, bias, and being a mere cog in a larger machinery. Does it really warrant the authority we attribute to science? Why should we treat a scientist’s opinion preferentially?
These are exactly the types of subtle arguments that can be recycled by anti-science actors as to why citizens should feel justified to distrust scientists, or why it is legitimate to discard inconvenient science in the first place.
I do not believe Mazer intended anything of this; and yet, writing about scientific controversies in the disinformation age needs a good amount of self-reflection.
I understand seeing one’s hot takes picked up by mainstream media is exciting and rewarding, we all want to believe that our ideas are valued and received the way we intended them. But the takeaway is dire. Having one’s ideas subtle instrumentalized for larger political agendas should send shivers up any academic spine.
That this article was published as is and not challenged on the facts by the Atlantic’s editors and fact-checkers is deeply problematic. Yet this is the new normal, in the US at least. The uncritical publication of Mazer’s catastrophic but persuasive argument about the core cause of these controversies is as much a symptom as a desired outcome of an entirely different set of actors and incentives. His article was by far not the first, nor will it be the last in a series of persuasive stories about the many alleged institutional failures within science.
New right metapolitics has identified science as a critical guardrail of democracy to dismantle. We are observing the discourse-warping impact of its anti-science influence campaigns in action. Cascading all the way to the top, enabled by new platform vulnerabilities and the broken market incentives of the attention (manipulation) economy.
I do hope Benjamin Mazer ponders these next time he sits down to write about the true roots of scientific controversies, albeit I doubt he will have an easy time finding a venue for a more reflective take.
UPDATE 3rd October 2023: The Atlantic responded relatively quickly to negative feedback to its original article, changing the problematic title and thrust of the argument advanced by Mazer. Here is the editor’s note:
This article has been updated to provide more context about the scientific debates it describes. It now includes an expanded description of Kristian Andersen’s characterizations of what constitutes typical collaboration during the peer-review process. It has also been updated to clarify that a faculty committee at the University of Florida stated that Joseph Ladapo may have violated research integrity standards, but the university declined to investigate. It has been updated to elaborate on the nature of the edits made to the state analysis led by Ladapo prior to release. It has been updated to include Brown’s defense of the Nature paper that was the subject of his “I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published” essay.
