RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Add as preferred source From genome editing to quantum computing, scientific progress is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, yet public faith in science is collapsing. Our species has mapped the human genome, created powerful computers that sit in the palms of our hands and extended human life spans beyond what our ancestors could have imagined—meanwhile, anti-intellectual movements are gaining momentum.
In his new book Anti-Science: Shortcuts to a Big Idea , Dariusz Jemielniak argues that this is not because of public ignorance or a failure to communicate science to the masses. Instead, we're witnessing and living through something far more complex: a fundamental shift in how society relates to knowledge itself.
"We have entered a period in which the relationship between information and truth has become fundamentally contested," Jemielniak of Kozminski University explains. "The technologies that promised democratized access to knowledge have also democratized access to falsehood."
Survey data from the mid-20th century showed high levels of confidence in scientists and scientific institutions. Science was associated with progress, prosperity and problem-solving, and the profession itself was well-respected.
Today, that well of public trust has been dramatically drained. There are many complex factors behind this decline, Jemielniak explains, including corporate-influence scandals, well-publicized cases of fraud, high-profile retractions and the sheer volume of scientific information now produced.
These factors alone are not enough to erode public trust, he explains. But when combined with a perfect storm of digital infrastructure that encourages the rapid sharing of shock-factor information, they are. Social media algorithms amplify sensational claims regardless of truth value, while echo chambers make it easy to find communities that validate virtually any belief.
"What is historically distinctive is the contemporary infrastructure that accelerates these cycles by rewarding outrage, simplifying complex disputes into identity signals, and turning epistemic conflict into content," Jemielniak explains.
Some scholars argue that humanity is even entering "a new Dark Ages driven by anti-intellectualism." Jemielniak says, "The proliferation of digital platforms has allowed misinformation to spread rapidly, challenging the public's ability to discern credible information and contributing to this erosion of trust."
Jemielniak suggests one part of the problem lies in science's very success—because modern science has become so advanced and therefore specialized, even scientists struggle to understand fields outside their own expertise.
"When people cannot evaluate scientific claims for themselves, they must rely on trust," he explains. "And when that trust is shaken—by scandal, by conflicting expert opinions, by the sheer alienating complexity of scientific discourse—the door opens for alternative explanations that feel more accessible, more human, more intuitively satisfying."
This creates what Jemielniak calls "epistemic dependence," in which rational belief depends not on direct evidence but on a kind of trust in the experts' having good reasons.
Another part of the problem is how human brains are hardwired. For most of human history, knowledge was shared through stories, from campfires to family gatherings to folk tales.
"Narrative is our default mode of understanding the world," Jemielniak says.
Scientific communication, by contrast, relies on peer-reviewed journal articles, statistical analyses and methodology sections to establish credibility in a way that is fundamentally different from the narrative forms our brains evolved to process.
"When someone shares a personal story about how a particular treatment cured their illness, or how their child developed symptoms after receiving a vaccine, that story has emotional power that a statistical analysis of thousands of cases cannot match," he explains. "The story is concrete, vivid and personal; the statistics are abstract, dry and impersonal. We are built to learn from stories, and stories can lead us astray."
Jemielniak also explores how scientific questions have become political battlegrounds and, even more challenging, personal identity markers.
This means that issues such as climate change, vaccine safety and evolution are no longer empirical questions but markers of group identity.
Research cited in the book reveals a surprising finding: Higher scientific literacy increased partisan polarization on climate change, suggesting that more scientific knowledge is not the simple answer.
"When acceptance or rejection of scientific consensus becomes a marker of group membership, it becomes resistant to change through traditional means of scientific communication," Jemielniak explains.
This means people who update their beliefs in response to new evidence risk social costs within their communities, including potential estrangement from friends and family.
Research across 158 countries between 2000 and 2019 found that while social media can bolster democracy by facilitating diverse viewpoints, the spread of disinformation is associated with democratic decline. In democracies, high levels of disinformation increase the likelihood of autocratization. In autocracies, it helps rulers maintain the status quo.
Jemielniak warns that mistrust in science has implications for the foundations of democratic society: "When citizens cannot agree on basic facts, when expertise is dismissed as bias, and when truth becomes merely one opinion among many, the shared epistemic foundation that democracies require begins to crumble."
The solution, Jemielniak argues, is not more science education or better communication—in fact, decades of research show that provid...
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