Is that too extreme a statement? Consider the recent approval given at top levels for citation justice (citing sources on the basis of equity, not usefulness) and suppressing uncomfortable research findings (presumably to advance various causes). Just recently, a demand has arisen for accuracy in data to take a back seat to what makes people feel more comfortable.

Then there are the paper mills, the impersonation scandals, the refusal to publish politically sensitive corrections, and the big time fraud.

And yet science bureaucrats, moan that trust in science has cratered over the years. Some commentators ascribe the loss of trust to mere acceptance of myths.

Cynics will respond that most people don’t even know about most of this. So how can corruption be a reason for loss of trust?

Fair enough. But when an enterprise is becoming dodgy, there often starts to be, shall we say, an odor about it. People who can’t do research may still smell the odor.

Looking everywhere but inward for the causes of loss of trust

A scattering of recent articles come to mind:

● From a no public access piece in Nature Neuroscience (October 14, 2025)

This Comment calls on scientists to acknowledge how insufficient communication and limited engagement beyond academia have deepened the divide between science and the public. Restoring trust requires a paradigm shift in which scientists accept that the responsibility to champion science lies with us. We propose a new model in which public communication and advocacy are considered as essential to our mission as rigor and reproducibility — critical not only for safeguarding science, but also for ensuring that its benefits reach all segments of the societies we serve. – Abstract

Well, authors Cory T. Miller, Michele A. Basso, Aaron P. Batista, Katalin M. Gothard, Karen J. Parker, Doris Y. Tsao, Ziv M. Williams & Michael L. Platt, how about you begin by allowing the public free access to your proposals?

● In Science, a paywalled review of a book by Michael Mann and Peter Hotez, Science Under Siege (2025), informs us,

The book then ends with a prescription for hope — communicating constructively, defeating disinformation, and supporting scientists — along with a “battle plan” for scientists and society. This latter part of the book is where I found myself wanting more.

Megan L. Ranney, “Restoring trust in science,” September 11, 2025

Ranney agrees with Mann and Hotez’s overall approach but “their prescription places an enormous burden on the scientists already under siege.” She thinks that fixing internal problems is important but sees the external threats as “far more powerful.”

It’s hard to know how to respond to such a claim. How about: The identified internal problems are doing the very job external threats can only try to do. Undermining from within is far more successful than siege from without. Cf the Tale of the Trojan Horse.

● Last year, Nautilus ran a big piece called “How to Rebuild Trust in Science,” based on an Aspen meet of experts, full of feelgood advice about communication:

Although building trust in science on a global scale can seem daunting, the necessary steps we see are largely the same as those we see working well locally: learn about your community, cultivate relationships with leaders in that community, and demonstrate that you are trustworthy. Above all, communicate with people in ways that relate to their own cultures and perspectives—and maybe even to the things they do for fun.

Cary Funk & Jylana L. Sheats, October 21, 2024

This public access piece is largely a string of interesting anecdotes about how various Aspen participants communicated with the public on relevant issues. Creative as these methods are, they aren’t focused on the growing internal problems that diminish a rational basis for trust in science.

How about just acting like there is no problem?

Image Credit: Putra - Adobe Stock

At Big Think, theoretical astrophysicist Ethan Siegel tells us that groupthink is not an issue in science:

It’s always important to explore the possibilities, even the most wild ones we can imagine. But then, the key point is to always return to, and to ground ourselves in, the observations and measurements we can actually acquire. If we ever want to go beyond our current understanding, any alternative theory has to not only reproduce all of our present-day successes, but to succeed where our current theories cannot. That’s why scientists are often so resistant to new ideas: not because of groupthink, dogma, or inertia, but because most new ideas never clear those epic hurdles. Whenever the data clearly indicates that one alternative is superior to all the others — but never before that point — a scientific revolution is likely to follow.

“Groupthink in science isn’t a problem; it’s a myth, October 30, 2025

This tells us more about Siegel than about anything else. First, his analysis is false to human nature. Groupthink is always a problem in any human group. We are united by what we agree on. Most of us make subtle compromises all the time in order to continue to agree. That is a common source of the origin of the forms of corruption noted here, both in science and in every other enterprise. It must be challenged routinely, to reduce corruption.

Second, while reading just-published God, the Science, the Evidence (2025), I was struck by the irrational hostility that — to offer only one example — physicists have shown to the Big Bang theory, which implies the existence of a Creator. And their documented irrational hostility is a sharp contrast to Siegel’s soothing claims. Stay tuned. I’ll write about that soon.