Science’s reform movement should have seen Trump’s call for ‘gold standard science’ coming, critics say | Science | AAAS

"Trump’s executive order calling for “gold standard science”—widely interpreted as an attempt to target findings that are inconsistent with the administration’s political agenda—was a foreseeable outcome of a movement that overstated the problems in science, according to some researchers. But science reformers say integrity concerns are too crucial to tamp down over fears of misuse....

Nosek says the order treats ideas for reform as requirements rather than targets, when even the best studies are unlikely to meet every criterion: “The implication is that policymakers won’t be able to use the best available evidence. … And that is in nobody’s interest.” The order also empowers political appointees to enforce its vision of scientific integrity, meaning researchers whose work is deemed to fall short face disciplinary action, Nosek says. And it could also make it easier for courts to throw out scientific evidence that’s not deemed up to standard, warns Joe Bak-Coleman, a collective behavior scientist at the University of Washington....

Nosek agrees that the term has been unhelpful: “We don’t use the crisis narrative.” Still, media coverage amplified the idea of science in crisis, and some people began to use the idea of a “replication crisis” to justify antiscience moves, Devezer says. In 2017, reformers were alarmed when the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed the HONEST Act, which aimed to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency to using only evidence with publicly available data and materials. The HONEST Act later died in the Senate, but conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation began to emphasize the idea that science is in crisis and needs reform, Lewandowsky says. “That narrative has been carefully constructed and curated over the last 10, 20 years.” ..."