At American Council for Science and Health, Chuck Dinerstein is hardly the first to express concern about the erosion of trustworthy science. But he expresses it well; instead of just hand-wringing, he offers some context: Scientists tend to be the sort of people who want “credit and recognition,” not wealth:

Unfortunately, the very same force can push people over ethical cliffs. To win the accolades, one must be first; speed matters. One need look no further than the continuing controversy over who “discovered” CRISPR. [1] In scientific research, when there are dozens of methodological “forks in the road,” the dishonest can make murky results look crystal-clear. Indeed, to the sufficiently bold, why wait for messy reality to cooperate when you can type numbers straight into a spreadsheet? Coupled with a system that does not reward replication, fewer watchdogs mean a lower risk of getting caught. And when the watchdogs are political actors, the incentive shifts again; more to do with keeping results palatable to those who hold the purse strings or public platforms than passing peer review.

“Fake Papers, Political Agendas: The Eroding Credibility of Research,” August 11, 2025

Dinerstein argues that “Science needs more innovative structures from within, ones that channel ambition toward the pursuit of truth, not ideology.” He takes his inspiration from Liam Kofi Bright of the London School of Economics and points to one of his essays on the topic here:

Abstract: It’s natural to think of scientists as truth seekers, people driven by an intense curiosity to understand the natural world. Yet this picture of scientists and scientific inquiry sits uncomfortably with the reality and prevalence of scientific fraud. If one wants to get at the truth about nature, why lie? Won’t that just set inquiry back, as people pursue false leads? To understand why this occurs – and what can be done about it – we need to understand the social structures scientists work within, and how some of the institutions which enable science to be such a successful endeavour all things considered, also abet and encourage fraud.

Bright, L. K. (2021). Why Do Scientists Lie?. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 89, 117-129.

When peer review is all that matters, as one psychologist puts it, “persuasion becomes more important than precison.”

One thing that will really help the discussion, going forward, is to quit blaming the public for not trusting science. That ship has sailed. Long ago, we believed in the polio vaccine because it worked. Governments’ panicked and conflicting response to — for example — COVID-19 did not inspire trust. Careful analysis of the culture in which things are going wrong is a good first step.