As World War I wound down, German scholar Oswald Spengler argued in The Decline of the West that civilizations, like organisms, pass through a natural life cycle. After an era of vigorous growth, they ossify and die. Each civilization’s science follows this same trajectory. An initial spurt of creativity and discovery gives way to decadence, when truth-seekers become so arrogant and intolerant of other belief systems that they sow the seeds of their own demise. Spengler prophesied that Western science would enter this phase toward the end of the 20th century.
I’ve been brooding over Spengler’s prophecy lately, because science, I fear, has entered its decadent phase. Signs of decline abound. First, the productivity of applied science has slumped over the past few decades. In “Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?,” economists from Stanford and MIT claim that “a wide range of evidence from various industries, products, and firms show[s] that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply.”
Then there is the replication crisis, the finding by statistician John Ioannidis and others that many peer-reviewed claims cannot be reproduced. Science has become less reliable, Ioannidis asserts, because competition among researchers for publications, grants, tenure, and other rewards has intensified. “Much research is conducted for reasons other than the pursuit of truth,” Ioannidis writes in “An Epidemic of False Claims.”
The health-care industry may be especially susceptible to corruption, because the financial incentives are so enormous. Supposedly new-and-improved tests and treatments generate huge profits for health-care providers but do not substantially improve patient outcomes. As genuine progress has stalled, hype has surged. A 2015 study of biomedical papers found that between 1974 and 2014 the frequency of terms such as “novel,” “innovative,” and “unprecedented” increased 15-fold. The so-called pure sciences aren’t so pure either. Prominent physicists persist in promoting glitzy but unconfirmable ideas like string theory, inflation, and multiverse theories.
As warnings about global warming become more dire, scientists retreat into escapist fantasies. They envision establishing colonies on Mars. They preach the imminence of the Singularity, in which we become superhuman cyborgs or download our psyches into cyberspace, where we can live forever. Some pundits propose that we are already living in cyberspace, a computer simulation constructed by God-like aliens. A few decades ago, these science fictions were fun. But now, as temperatures and sea levels climb, they strike me as, well, decadent. There is a whiff of end times in the air.
The rotten cherry atop this mess is the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and sexual predator, who died in jail last August. Epstein cozied up to leading universities and scientists, who welcomed his attention. They took his cash, rode on his jet, and flocked to his parties and conferences, even after his 2008 conviction for having sex with underage girls.
The Epstein scandal is just a symptom of a deeper ethical sickness. Is accepting gifts from a sex offender really worse than taking money from the Pentagon? Or the Koch brothers, who thwarted efforts to combat climate change? Or the Sacklers, whose firm, Purdue Pharma, catalyzed the opioid epidemic? In our hyper-capitalist world, careerism, ambition, and greed trump ethics and the idealistic pursuit of truth for its own sake — or for the benefit of others.
Perhaps even more than Spengler, an earlier German prophet foresaw these dismal trends. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx (and Engels) acknowledged that capitalism had brought about extraordinary advances in the arts and sciences. But Marx prophesied that capitalism, by devaluing everything except profits, would inevitably self-destruct, dragging the rest of bourgeois culture down with it.
But unlike Marx and Spengler, I don’t think we’re doomed. In fact, science, in spite of its troubles, can help save us. Ioannidis and other critics have proposed reforms that might rouse science from its malaise. These include making research more transparent and accountable, boosting support for young investigators, and eradicating sexual harassment.
My students here at Stevens also keep me from despairing. This semester, they have produced upbeat reports on climate change, inequality, mental illness, and war. They and other up-and-coming researchers will surely bring about an idealistic new era, in which science is dedicated to truth and human welfare. The hope of the young gives me hope.
John Horgan directs the Stevens Center for Science Writings. This column is adapted from one originally posted on his Scientific American blog, “Cross-check.”
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