Undermining Trust in Science: No Fraud Required

In this paper, we caution against a sort of naive trust in science, which assumes that normative standards of scientific inquiry are upheld except in rare cases of fraud or research misconduct. Since scientists are subject to the norms and practices of the institutions that support their work, we need to look beyond individuals’ behavior to examine the institutional contexts that shape the practice of science. This paper probes into two central aspects of the scientific institution as they play out in the U.S.—peer review and grant funding. We argue that problems more pervasive and intractable than outright fraud threaten to undermine trust in science. The push for positive results by journals and funding agencies alike, coupled with institutional pressures to publish, entails a serious misalignment of goals for scientists—the kind of efficiency needed to maximize positive outputs comes at the expense of the time, effort, and discipline that good science calls for.