Processing the Gold Standard Science order
It is possible to support science and hold it accountable at the same time
In the last few days, we have run three editorials on the “Gold Standard Science EO” that President Trump signed to describe principles for the administration’s science agencies. One of these was harshly critical of the EO as a scheme to introduce more government interference in to science. Then today, we ran a piece from the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Michael Kratsios, defending the order and chiding the scientific community for overreacting. I’m sure many of our readers disagree with our decision to run a piece from the director given the administration’s actions, but I felt that running his essay was important in allowing our readers to understand the administration’s logic and to give the director the opportunity to explain his position.
Today, I also released my own piece arguing that it is logical to worry that the EO will be misused by the administration given the other disastrous decisions made about science so far, especially the cuts to funding and the barriers to recruiting international students. However, I think the scientific community needs to realize that the bad anecdotes that have been generated over problems with research integrity have opened the door for the order, especially when there is so much evasion and defensiveness from authors, journals, and institutions. I passionately disagree with scientists quoted in a recent Science news story characterizing efforts to improve research integrity as partly responsible for the administration’s actions. Those efforts would not have had the public impact that they have had if some members of the scientific community had been more responsive and conversational about addressing the challenges. Instead, many institutions have clammed up, hid behind canned statements, and run investigations meant to kick cans down the road.
It is true that incidents of research misconduct and honest errors that warrant retraction are rare. But politics and public opinion, especially in today’s fragmented media environment, are driven by anecdotes, not data. (Also, segments of the public are not absorbing daily information about politics the way many academics do, as exemplified by the spike in Google searches for “Did Joe Biden drop out?” on Election Day.) Citing the low rate of retraction or explaining the large number of papers that are correct therefore cannot compete with a juicy story that is widely circulated online or repeated in political speeches and sound bites. The only response that has a chance is to say that the scientific community recognizes how these incidents could shake public and political confidence and owns the responsibility for earning trust. Sleuths and journalists who point out problems with research should be acknowledged as making science better, especially when the problems they point out are correct.
When our news department exposes problems in research or we publish critical commentaries, we sometimes get the feedback that we should refrain from publishing these because they are “bad for science.” It’s not bad for science to love it so much that you want to make it better. Science and related outlets are not “state media” for the scientific enterprise. We hold powerful people to account just like other parts of journalism. As I said in the editorial, “it is possible to support science and hold it accountable at the same time.”
The last five months have seen a string of destructive actions from the administration and strong reactions from the scientific community. But solely focusing on reacting to the administration’s actions takes effort away from a collective conversation about how the scientific community wants to respond. Blindly doubling down, as many of us did during the pandemic, probably isn’t the best approach. Instead, the scientific community should decide for ourselves what our principles are and how we want to carry out research, teaching, and the development of the scientific community in the future.
Well said. The academic community is not immune from the careerism and self-promotion that is part of the pressure to publish and to publish quickly. Too many in the academy regard tenure as a kind of job security rather than as a means for insuring academic freedom. What is striking about tenure is how little those who have it ever say, think, or write something requiring the very protections that tenure affords. The public finds it astounding that Marc Tessier-Levigne and Doris Kearns Goodwin still have their tenured positions after admitting manipulation of data and plagiarism respectively. This is of course nothing new. Newton "edited" and back-dated his notebooks in an attempt to show that he really had invented the Calculus before Leibnitz. Holden Thorp is right to say out loud that the scientific community needs to be less defensive and more accountable.
Many thanks to him for having the courage to say so.
“Sleuths and journalists who point out problems with research should be acknowledged as making science better, especially when the problems they point out are correct.”
Exactly right. But too often the response is defensive stonewalling rather than acknowledging the very strong and sincere efforts to make science better.
We can and must improve.