Last month, I was fortunate to participate in an event hosted by Open to Debate, a one-hour weekly program broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the country, and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. The participants considered the question: “Is the scientific enterprise too risk-averse?”
The preparation I did for the event was nerve-wracking, mostly because it was my first time ever participating in a debate. But I enjoyed the experience. The debate functioned like an extended conversation between me and three others from varied backgrounds who had thought about the issues. We each had our area of focus, which led to a wide-ranging discussion. But the resonant aspect of the event was in how it forced me to carefully consider big questions about the health of science, which now operates in what I and others describe as wartime. In light of that, I reflected on why science feels so culturally intransigent, and why this frustrates me to the extent that it does. The exercise prompted me to think about whether scientific risk aversion is a problem at all, why that is so, and how we can address it.
For all the talk of science’s demise, it remains a trusted institution overall. This is partly because we remember the stories about scientific iconoclasts and appreciate the great things that they gave us. The history of science is often narrated through moments of intellectual disobedience: Galileo Galilei challenging religious authority, Charles Darwin unsettling creationist beliefs, Barbara McClintock studying strange genetic phenomena long before the field understood what she was seeing. The stories are true, and their characters worthy of their legendary status.
The conflicts arise when we zoom in and take a closer look at how it all works on the ground, especially as professional science grew into a large industry in the post-World War II era. When we do that, a picture emerges that contradicts our fantasies of intrepid thinkers and instead demonstrates a profession riddled with ritual and a resistance to change — even when we all agree that we need it. It is in these day-to-day machinations of science that risk aversion festers.
Risk is rather simple: a willingness to reflect on the processes, rituals, and incentives of science; evaluate them; and change them if we agree that they do not work.
In this quest to discuss science’s risk aversion, I must define what risk is and isn’t. As I see it, risk is not what has happened to science since 2025 and the rise of the Make America Healthy Again movement. It is not the subversion of scientific institutions. It is not the introduction of doubt into the power of science as a knowledge creation tool. It is not undermining the notion of consensus or empowering merchants of disinformation. And risk is definitely not the notion that regulations, standards, and guardrails are unnecessary. Science is an intricate craft that requires an allegiance to a process, and this includes strict ethics that guide what we study and how we study it. Alternatively, a proper risk portfolio innovates within responsible boundaries, so that we can spot broken or stale actors, policies, and ideas, and then innovate around them.
Risk is, as I argued during the debate, rather simple: a willingness to reflect on the processes, rituals, and incentives of science; evaluate them; and change them (dramatically if necessary), if we agree that they do not work. This definition might seem vanilla, but its potential to disrupt becomes clear when we apply it to several areas of the scientific enterprise as it is practiced today.
Scientific publishing has been described as a disaster: Publishers have become cartels, with a chokehold on our ability to share our findings and on the metrics responsible for professional ascendence. Hiring and promotion are incorrigibly tainted by network effects, which accentuate biases towards certain institutions, mentor pedigrees, and extended professional circles. Idea mafias dominate fields for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of the science. Scientists who lean into the stories of great luminaries by applying their skill set to new problems incur a measurable professional penalty. And demographic disparities (in ethnicity or gender, for example) dictate who gets funded, cited, and, by extension, elevated into the leadership of many fields.
Risk aversion may not be responsible for these problems, but not addressing them when the flaws are in plain view is the stuff of hypocrisy. Because of scholars working over the span of decades, we know (often through formal scientific inquiry and data) that many scientific practices are riddled with biased processes that are, in my view, indefensible. (To quote a musician with whom I’ve collaborated: “You gotta know to be a hypocrite.”) And risk aversion buffers the problems through a bizarre fear of overhauling these processes, even though we can measure their imperfections.
Some suggest that now is not the time for this sort of question, given the heartless attacks on science since early 2025. Instead, we should resist the flagrant anti-science ideologues who have already caused significant harm. But this warning is based on a false dichotomy: We don’t have to choose between keeping things the way they are and destroying them entirely. Yes, we must continue to defend scientific institutions against attempts to weaken them. But also, it is imperative that we not pretend that the scientific process, prior to early 2025, was healthy. For many decades, science has played it safe and hidden behind the triumphs of workers who succeeded despite the system, not because of it.
The solutions do not require a revolution. Many alternative models already exist: the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment for evaluating scientific merit, structured lottery systems for grant proposals, research calls for “high-risk” projects, and many others. But even though some of them might be well-known, they remain mostly boutique, used in small corners of the scientific world. So, an actionable way to combat risk aversion would be to test the outcomes of alternative models throughout the science ecosystem.
Science has played it safe and hidden behind the triumphs of workers who succeeded despite the system, not because of it.
In the end, this exercise in interrogating the risk aversion in science is an act of imagination. It should facilitate thought experiments (and, eventually, formal ones) on improving stagnant policies that leave people out, stifle innovation, and create gates of various kinds. And this claim is hardly a mandate to drain the science swamp but is closer to the opposite: Loving something requires that you aim to make it better.
As I learned in my youth from older kids gambling pocket change: “No risk, no reward.” In this case, the risk is worth it because the potential rewards are substantial: a flowering of scientific innovation with results that stand up to scrutiny, reward the very best of us, and help solve nature’s greatest puzzles.
This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.
Previously Published on undark.org
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