Transparency versus Autonomy: Meta-Science, Fields, and the Political Theory of Pure Science

• In Event: Reproducibility and Other Problems: Practical and Institutional Responses to Contemporary Crises in Science - II

Abstract

Widespread anxieties over frauds and failed replications across science have provoked discussions and policy changes at funding agencies, journals, and universities driven by meta-scientific reformers. These have largely been couched in terms of a recommitment to the liberal scientific values of transparency and accountability. Yet, the reception of these reforms has been mixed and has laid bare tensions in science policy. Drawing on 57 interviews of members of the board of reviewing editors at Science, we show how researchers across the spectrum of scientific fields have pushed back against the reforms drawing on tropes of conservative thought, positions familiar to science studies scholars.

Authors

• David Peterson, UCLA

• Aaron Panofsky, University of California, Los Angeles