The moment to fix science has arrived

American science is reeling amidst a barrage of grant cancellations, funding delays, attacks on leading universities, cuts in Federal research staff, and the general devaluation of scientific expertise and empiricism in public life.

Scientists who rely on government support for their research are used to some insecurity about their own futures - though obviously not to this extent. But what makes this moment unique is that there is now widespread fear that the entire enterprise might be about to collapse. 

It is thus understandable that scientists and the organizations that represent us have responded with - along with shock and anger - an appeal to the public and policymakers to restore the recently disrupted status quo. 

The case is simple: owing to consistently strong Federal support for science since WWII, the US is the unquestioned leader in global science, bringing benefits to our health, well-being and prosperity that far outweigh the costs, and therefore it is in everyone’s best interests to get things back to the way they were before the damage is permanent. 

We wholeheartedly agree that fostering a vibrant scientific ecosystem is critical to improving our lives and solving the many great challenges that confront us. However, unlike most of the people speaking out now, we don’t think science in 2024 was even close to adequate - let alone vibrant. 

Our institutions are turgid. Our funding system punishes creativity and ambition. We have failed to adapt the ways we train young scientists to changes in technology and the job market, and high standards have evaporated. Instead of selecting for innovators, our career paths and structures favor conformity. Zero sum thinking is pervasive. 

Prestige and credit dominate motivations. We routinely use metrics of individual achievement rather than the thoughtful assessment of scientific contributions to judge each other, and in turn determine who gets hired and funded and where the next generation gets trained. And even as the majority of scientists inevitably move out of academia, this deeply rooted mentality follows them out, broadening its negative impacts into other sectors.

Our publication system is slow, expensive and cumbersome, and focused on signaling certainty and impact rather than unearthing the substance of it. And while the Internet was literally created to help scientists exchange data - the most useful and reusable part of scientific output - the ways we do so remain mired in the past. As a result our collective scientific output is poorly available if shared at all.  

It has been clear for our whole careers that these practices impede scientific process. And yet any attempt to reform them has been met with fierce resistance by both those succeeding in the system and those aspiring to follow a known path to doing so. This choice has made the whole endeavor operate at a minuscule fraction of its readily achievable potential.

So as we lament the lost scientific progress that cutting funding, firing scientists and undermining research institutions will produce, fighting for the future of science requires that we address the far greater loss of scientific progress that we have brought on ourselves. And as jarring as it may appear to see good in the current moment, we believe scientists have a once in a lifetime opportunity to do just that. 

For the first time in living memory, stability isn’t really an option. This was true even before external forces deliberately upended the status quo. Changes in society and advances in technology had already sealed the current system’s fate - it was just hard to see. But now we have no choice but to accept that things will never be the same. And once we realize that this is not obligately a bad thing - for the future of science if not yesterday’s version of it - we have a real chance at salvation.

To those concerned that now is not the time to highlight our internal challenges - that it will be giving ammunition to our enemies - we think it is more important than ever to show we are serious and earnest about maximizing science’s impact on society. So in that spirit, we will use this space to dig deeply into the issues that we believe most undermine science, to explore potential ways to fix them, and work with everyone willing to implement these fixes. We do this not as an alternative to defending science, but as an indispensable part of saving it.