Scientists’ forays into politics are hurting their credibility, according to a new study from the Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research.

The study’s participants viewed politically neutral scientists as more credible than those who made their political affiliations known, the study found. Researchers created synthetic academic profiles of researchers imbued with political beliefs based on real tweets from scientists. Participants found academic profiles with Left or Right-wing political views less credible, especially those who took strong political stances.

X, formerly known as Twitter, has become a key platform for scientific researchers to gain visibility for their work. X mentions of papers published in general interest journals have grown about 25-fold since 2011, but that can take a toll on credibility. Scientists’ posts are significantly more political than those of the average American, with 44% of their posts containing non-neutral political content, compared to 7% for the general population.

The impact of public political stances was not equal for both Left and Right-leaning researchers. Strongly Republican scientists were considered 39% less credible than neutral scientists, while strongly Democratic scientists were only considered 11% less credible than neutral scientists, the study found.

While Democrats were very sceptical of the credibility of Republican scientists, they viewed politically neutral and Democratic researchers as equally credible. Republican respondents preferred moderate Republicans researchers to neutral researchers, though they were very sceptical of strongly Republican scientists, in contrast to Democratic respondents, who viewed strongly Democratic scientists as credible.

The politicisation of science has accelerated in recent years, most notably with several high profile scientific magazines endorsing Joe Biden in 2020. Scientific American urged readers to vote for Biden in the first endorsement in its 175-year history, praising his fact-based plans to “protect our health, our economy and the environment” and writing that Trump “rejects evidence and science”.

The US government’s funding of scientific research may also play a role. For example, large NIH scientific research grants have fueled speculation that researchers are tailoring their findings to suit the preferences of government officials such as Anthony Fauci, who have a say in the allotment of grants.

The researchers’ findings — that political stances damage scientists’ credibility — track with declining trust in institutions in the past two decades, particularly the declining trust in scientific institutions and research. That decline has been most evident among Republicans, whose belief that science’s impact on society is mostly positive has dropped from 70% to 47% since 2016, according to Pew, while Democrats have seen a more modest decline. This makes sense in the context of scientists’ own political polarisation, as evidenced by the Munich study’s finding that, of non-neutral political stances taken by scientific researchers, the stances are overwhelmingly Left-of-centre.

“Politicized scientific communication online erodes public perceptions of scientists’ credibility, undermines public engagement with scientific discourse, and potentially exacerbates affective polarization within U.S. society,” the study concluded.

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is UnHerd’s US correspondent.

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