Skip to main content
Log in

The crisis of politicization within and beyond science

  • Comment
  • Published:

From Nature Human Behaviour

View current issue Submit your manuscript

Science, by its nature, is open to uncertainty and interpretation, but politicization — fuelled by motivated reasoning and advances in the technological environment — is leading to a new level of science scepticism among citizens and scientists themselves. What can be done to address these crises?

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

References

  1. Nature 467, 133 (2010).

  2. Baker, M. Nature 533, 452–454 (2016).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Dietz, T. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 14081–14087 (2013).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Bolsen, T., Druckman, J. N. & Cook, F. L. Public Opin. Q. 76, 1–26 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. van der Linden, S. Pers. Individ. Dif. 87, 171–173 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Open Science Collaboration. Science 349, aac4716 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Bollen, K., Cacioppo, J. T., Kaplan, R. M., Krosnick, J. A. & Olds, J. L. Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Perspectives on Robust and Reliable Science (Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, 2015).

  8. van der Linden, S., Leiserowitz, A., Rosenthal, S. & Maibach, E. Global Challenges 1, 1600008 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Nosek, B. A. et al. Science 348, 1422–1425 (2015).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  10. Ioannidis, J. P. A. in The Oxford Handbook of the Science of Science Communication (eds Jamieson, K. H., Kahan, D. & Scheufele, D. A.) 103–110 (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 2017).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to James N. Druckman.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Druckman, J.N. The crisis of politicization within and beyond science. Nat Hum Behav 1, 615–617 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0183-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0183-5

  • Springer Nature Limited

This article is cited by

Navigation