Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

The crisis of politicization within and beyond science

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, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

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

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing