Can the public’s trust in science - and scientists - be restored?

The title of this talk quotes the title of an interview conducted by the University of Rochester  (UR) News Center posted on-line on July 20, 2022 [1]. Ironically, that was two months after the UR Vice President for Research determined, after conducting an inquiry,  that there was nothing wrong with data presented in a 2020 UR paper claiming the discovery of room temperature superconductivity [2], contrary to what had been reported in refereed journals [3] and private communications to UR. The paper in question [2] was retracted by the journal two months later, and an investigation is currently under way [4]. Universities, scientific journals, and funding agencies play an important role in contributing to the public’s trust in science. Trust is enhanced when these institutions enforce supporting data availability provisions they have on their books, and take seriously reports of evidence of scientific misconduct. I will discuss several examples in the last 3 years where institutions, journals and funding agencies acted in ways that were deleterious to the public’s trust in science and scientists, in connection with claims of high temperature superconductivity in hydrides under pressure.

 

[1] University of Rochester News Center, July 20, 2022.

[2] E. Snider et al, Nature 586, 373–377 (2020).

[3] J. E. Hirsch and D. van der Marel, Matter Radiat. Extremes 7, 048401 (2022).

[4] Edwin Cartlidge, “Why a blockbuster superconductivity claim met a wall of scepticism”, Nature News, September 6, 2023.