Science Requires a Culture Change

We are at a possibly catastrophic time for science in the United States, academic science especially. The Trump administration is cutting funding for research in areas the president finds offensive (e.g., climate change), and public support for science is at an all-time low.

This situation didn’t come out of nowhere. Mid-twentieth-century academic scientists (and those of us who more recently made a career in higher education too) bear some responsibility. After World War II, there was widespread recognition that scientists had won the war. Nuclear bombs, yes, but radar and drug development as well. With the coming of the Cold War, there was broad political and public consensus that universities needed lavish funding. Generally, our predecessors took the money without much explanation of what value they provided to society. When Trump came into office, science was an easy target.

In this context, Gwen Ottinger’s essay, “Repairing Relations With Science” (Issues, Summer 2026), offers a laudable vision and an inspiring manifesto. Ottinger details a way that science can contribute to civic life and social justice and simultaneously gain the trust and support of citizens, taxpayers. She argues for reparative science—research that does not pretend to be separate from moral questions, recognizes wrongs, and supports communities—and for the public accountability of scientists.

But Ottinger doesn’t offer a road map or a strategy—how can we gain support for reparative science and what she terms “scrutability”? Science requires a culture change, and the snap of our fingers won’t do the trick.

Prominent scientists and academic leaders who support Ottinger’s vision must speak out, and most importantly they must work with those of us who agree with Ottinger to transform scientific education. Requiring a one-off course that even faculty do not take seriously—the current status of responsible conduct of research at many universities—will not suffice. Teaching students that they should not fudge data is not sufficient. Apprentice scientists need to learn—as a central part of their education—that values underlie all science, that science is shaped by societal forces, and that all scientists have social responsibilities. PhD science education requires a radical transformation.

But even such education will not move us to reparative science on its own. Practicing scientists need incentives to engage in reparative science, even if they think it is the right thing to do. This will require a change in the standards for academic tenure. Scientist collaboration with communities and citizens needs to “count” for tenure in a substantial way, and having fewer peer reviewed articles should not hurt tenure prospects.

Finally, grantmaking—especially at the federal level—requires reconceptualization. Reparative science must be made part of the expectation for grant receipt success.

This kind of transformation will require an expansive alliance of scientists, social scientists, and policymakers. This group must build a detailed plan and develop a clear strategy for winning hearts and minds and for implementation. This is a long-term project, but a crisis is a time when organizational change is possible. Now is that time.

Gwen Ottinger calls for science to be “part of our strategy for creating a just world.” She argues that to do so, scientists and scientific institutions must foster “functional moral relations” and suggests that research institutions should consider the perspectives of impacted individuals and communities outside of academia. As researchers committed to socially impactful scholarship, we fully agree with Ottinger that science can help repair the “dysfunctional moral relations that allow injustice to flourish.”

But how, exactly, can this be done? Here we offer a few tangible suggestions, and a few questions, to support researchers and research institutions in fulfilling this potential.

First, universities can provide the infrastructure and enabling conditions for reparative research, including by providing tenure and promotion committee guidelines about how to evaluate research that is co-designed with external partners; small funding awards for faculty to teach community-based research courses (particularly crucial in teaching the next generation how to do this work); course releases for work at the research-practice-policy interface; and physical and virtual spaces where people from outside the university (community members, nonprofit staff, policymakers) can gather and discuss pressing societal issues. Funding agencies and philanthropists can support these efforts by providing financial support to universities for the above efforts, as well as to researchers who engage in this type of science.

In addition, we suggest that researchers can put themselves in positions where they will be asked to contribute to existing social justice efforts, rather than trying to retrofit existing research onto community needs. We suggest a simple question that researchers can ask themselves as a gauge of whether science is reparative (or even perhaps broadly useful) for a given community: Who defined the research problem? Was it a plucky grad student with a good idea; a credentialed researcher at a prestigious Ivy League school who might—hopefully—bring some resources with them; or perhaps a community leader, farmer, or city worker who needed help with understanding a particular issue? All of the above could potentially be defined as “community-based” research. But only the last scenario begins to pass the test of whether that research is truly appreciated by those who are impacted by the problem.

Ottinger paraphrases Brian Butler, an organizer with Greenaction, a health and environmental justice advocacy organization, who states that “we know what the problems are.” While we may know the problems, however, the solutions or actions to take are not guaranteed to lead to desired outcomes. We additionally suggest that research can be used to study the degree to which solutions produce desired results (such as decreased pollutant exposure).

In sum, we agree with Ottinger that scientists can repair moral relations by the type of work they do, and we believe that researchers and communities from diverse backgrounds can come together around an ethics of care, in which the powerful tools of science can accessibly and meaningfully serve the public.

Gwen Ottinger provides an inspiring vision for placing scientists’ moral responsibilities at the forefront of their work. Importantly, she does not think science’s moral significance comes primarily from its ability to generate important facts. Rather, she argues that the very practice of doing science should help to repair moral relationships. To fulfill this vision, she argues that typical norms of science—including approaches to collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data—sometimes need to be adjusted.

Ottinger’s argument accords with recent literature in the philosophy of science, which emphasizes that methodological choices in science are value-laden and that one cannot decide what counts as “good science” without considering the specific purposes for which it is done. For example, Greg Lusk and I argued for this position in “Against Global Aims for Science: Values, Epistemic Priority, and a Local Aims Approach,” published in Synthese in 2024. However, as Bennett Holman and Torsten Wilholt point out in “The New Demarcation Problem,” published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science in 2022, this raises the question of how to distinguish when changes to typical scientific norms are appropriate and when they are not.

Ottinger makes an important contribution to this discussion by proposing three principles for developing trustworthy scientific institutions: (1) acknowledging and combatting ignorance; (2) promoting the “scrutability” of the moral commitments underlying research; and (3) promoting pluralism and a diversity of perspectives. Scientific norms could be assessed partly by their contributions to achieving these principles, but each of them merits further discussion.

Acknowledging ignorance can promote collaboration and prevent scientists from becoming dogmatic. However, “manufacturing ignorance” has become a central element in the playbook used by interest groups to slow regulatory decisionmaking to a standstill, as David Michaels ably detailed in his 2008 book Doubt Is Their Product. Thus, we need to find ways to use ignorance as a stimulus for further inquiry without allowing it to delay needed policy decisions.

Making the normative commitments associated with research more scrutable is also crucial. Nevertheless, it is often difficult for scientists to recognize the normative commitments associated with their own research. One solution is for scientists to disclose as much information as possible about their research so others can examine it. Calls for “open science” are often directed at publicly funded scientists, however, while the data and methods underlying privately funded research, including studies performed for regulatory purposes, are not released. This is a problematic asymmetry that needs to be addressed.

Ottinger’s third principle—pluralism—can also help to bring normative commitments to light, insofar as researchers coming from different perspectives are often in a good position to recognize the value-laden aspects of each other’s work. Helen Longino defended this position in her 1990 book Science as Social Knowledge. But pluralism in science, like ignorance, can be used as an excuse to slow policymaking to a standstill. In response, we need to help scientists communicate effectively about the strengths and weaknesses of diverse scientific perspectives, and we need to support policymakers in making well-reasoned decisions with that information.