No Replication, No Reality: Irreproducible Science in a Post-Truth Climate

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

Abstract

In 2016, 90% of scientists surveyed in Nature expressed belief there was at least a slight reproducibility crisis in science. That same year, Oxford Dictionary dubbed “post-truth” its word of the year. In an era of “alternative facts,” fake news, psy-ops Facebook ads, and thriving online conspiracy theory communities, scientists have struggled to reshape their research practices and institutions in the face of pervasive issues with replication and bias. To understand the crossover between these two phenomena, we have conducted coding and other qualitative data analysis on a set of 350 opinion, news, and research articles from popular press and academic scientific journals that address the reproducibility crisis in science. This presentation will identify the entry points of “post-truth” discourse into the genealogy of “reproducibility crisis” discourse. In particular, we will discuss demarcations and blurring of disciplinary boundaries as means of sheltering science from, or exposing science to, post-truth concerns. Despite this boundary work, we argue that the effects of the reproducibility crisis are not just contained within elite circles in the scientific establishment; rather, discussion of the reproducibility crisis has implications for the legitimacy of science in public life, evidence-based policy decisions, and the purported objectivity of scientific methodology.

Authors

• Kelsey Ichikawa, Harvard University

• Julie Chung, Harvard University