Reproducibility, Scientific Integrity, and Public Engagement in the Age of Digital Misinformation and COVID-19

Abstract:

Scientific research has been in a process of increasing the degree to which data are made publicly available. Deposition of data sets and code that allow other researchers to repeat analyses in scientific papers have enhanced the scientific enterprise. Preprints make information available to other researchers while the peer review process is carried out. Within the scientific community, these efforts have had an enormous positive impact. During the COVID-19 crisis and in the longer-running but potentially more important climate crisis, these measures have also helped anti-science forces who seize on and distort information in preprints, even when they never survive peer review or are significantly altered. Similarly, deposited data and code can also be manipulated by these same actors. It is incumbent on science -- if we are to benefit from these excellent changes to scientific workflow -- to better manage the ways in which this information is presented and to engage with political forces that are willing to help science battle actors who seek to further dismantle environmental regulations and the public health infrastructure.