Weaponization of Reproducibility and Open Science
Context
White House Executive Order on “Restoring Gold Standard Science”
23 May 2025
White House Executive Order on “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking”
7 August 2025
Response
COS Statement on “Restoring Gold Standard Science” Executive Order
Center for Open Science (29 May 2025)
Open Letter in Support of Science
Stand Up for Science
Amid White House claims of a research ‘replication crisis,’ scientists offer solutions
Benjamin Plackett, Chemical & Engineering News (14 July 2025)
Trump’s call for ‘gold-standard science’ has prompted an outcry: here’s why
Jeff Tollefson & Dan Garisto, Nature (28 May 2025)
‘Gold Standard Science’ may lead to discarding valid research
Leigh Krietsch Boerner, Chemical & Engineering News (9 June 2025)
Metascience can improve science — but it must be useful to society, too
Editorial, Nature (8 July 2025)
Potential misuse of metascience poses a dilemma: how to communicate problems such as the difficulty of reproducibility in a way that it is not misused to undermine the foundations of science itself. But trying to brush the problems in research under the carpet would be worse. Science is under intense scrutiny and that means it’s important for researchers to discuss any weaknesses in the system openly and to use rigorous methods and data to address them. […] Ultimately, metascientists must guard against the risk of becoming overly focused on generating studies that are mainly of interest to other researchers and their institutions. Their work can and must serve wider societal needs. […] A government scientist who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation said that the language around gold-standard science was being used to justify the sweeping cuts to science proposed by the White House this year.
Trump order gives political appointees vast powers over research grants
News article, Nature, (8 August 2025)
Trump appointees will be able to overrule science grant decisions
Krystal Vasquez, Chemical & Engineering News (13 August 2025)
Trump called for ‘gold-standard science’: how the NIH, NSF and others are answering
News article, Nature (29 August 2025)
But researchers and science-policy specialists tell Nature that elements of the plans leave the door open to political interference in science. […] Researchers who spoke to Nature say the overhaul is not in good faith, pointing to the Trump administration’s language around the policy. […] A government scientist who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation said that the language around gold-standard science was being used to justify the sweeping cuts to science proposed by the White House this year […] [Maryam Zaringhalam, a molecular biologist and senior director for policy at the Center for Open Science] fears that political appointees will use the new policies’ emphasis on issues such as reproducibility and transparency to raise questions about research they don’t like.
Scientific Journals in the Hot Seat
Inside Higher Education (2 October 2025)
And before taking his post, Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, a former Harvard University biostatistician, launched their own journal—The Journal of the Academy of Public Health, which is linked to the right-wing news site RealClearPolitics—as a counter to mainstream journals.
Debate in Science
Sound policy demands sound science
Michael Kratsios (Trump’s Science Czar)
Science’s reform movement should have seen Trump’s call for ‘gold standard science’ coming, critics say
Cathleen O’Grady
Sluggishness and defensiveness helped enable an executive order on research integrity
H. Holden Thorp (editor-in-chief, Science)
Fool’s gold
David Michaels & Wendy Wagner
What does Trump’s call for ‘gold standard science’ really mean?
Jeffrey Mervis (27 May 2025)
Precedents
Constructing “Sound Science” and “Good Epidemiology”: Tobacco, Lawyers, and Public Relations Firms
Ong and Glantz (2001)
Public health professionals need to be aware that the “sound science” movement is not an indigenous effort from within the profession to improve the quality of scientific discourse, but reflects sophisticated public relations campaigns controlled by industry executives and lawyers whose aim is to manipulate the standards of scientific proof to serve the corporate interests of their clients.
There’s No Such Thing As ‘Sound Science’
Christie Aschwanden, FiveThirtyEight
Whereas the “open science” movement aims to make science more reliable, reproducible and robust, proponents of “sound science” have historically worked to amplify uncertainty, create doubt and undermine scientific discoveries that threaten their interests.
A Remedy for Broken Science, Or an Attempt to Undercut It?
Michael Schulson, Undark
Debate in Retraction Watch Blog
‘Anyone can do this’: Sleuths publish a toolkit for post-publication review
Reese Richardson
Guest post: NIH-funded replication studies are not the answer to the reproducibility crisis in pre-clinical research
Mike Rossner (image forensics specialist)
Guest post: In defense of direct replication studies (if they even need defending)
Csaba Szabo
Miscellaneous
Council of Councils Meeting, April 21, 2025
Jayanta Bhattacharya (NIH Director)
Research-integrity sleuths say their work is being ‘twisted’ to undermine science
Elisabeth Bik, Nature
The Case for Government-Backed Science Publishing
Robert M. Kaplan
Science is a strong link problem
Adam Mastroianni
Skepticism Is Not Science
Nathan J. Robinson, Current Affairs
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/31/opinion/research-misconduct-funding/
No doubt these activities are bad for science, insofar as they can generate confusion within expert communities, but in many cases, experts will likely see the flaws in many if not most instances of facsimile science. The greater risk, I believe, is that to the extent that the public learns about these corrupt practices, they may come to distrust science generally. It is essential for academic scientists to pay attention to these issues, particularly the question of who is funding their science and to what ends, to insist in all circumstances of full disclosure of that funding, and to reject any grants or contracts that involve non-disclosure or non-publication agreements. In this sense, Professor Krosnick and I agree: It is essential for scientists to keep their house in order.(Oreskes 2021)