Science Lying increases trust in science, study finds - If science isn't trusted, society becomes more vulnerable to misinformation and less able to effectively respond to complex challenges such as pandemics.

https://phys.org/news/2025-07-science.html
https://archive.is/bLSeQ
Research by philosopher of science and Honorary Research Associate at Bangor University, Byron Hyde, looked at the role of transparency in fostering public trust in science.

The paper, published in the journal Theory & Society, starts by outlining the "bizarre phenomenon" known as the transparency paradox: that transparency is needed to foster public trust in science, but being transparent about science, medicine and government can also reduce trust.
Hyde argues that, to find a solution to this paradox, it is important to consider what institutions are being transparent about.

The study revealed that, while transparency about good news increases trust, transparency about bad news, such as conflicts of interest or failed experiments, decreases it.

Therefore, one possible solution to the paradox, and a way to increase public trust, is to lie (which Hyde points out is unethical and ultimately unsustainable), by for example making sure bad news is hidden and that there is always only good news to report.

Instead, he suggests that a better way forward would be to tackle the root cause of the problem, which he argues is the public overidealising science. People still overwhelmingly believe in the 'storybook image' of a scientist who makes no mistakes, which creates unrealistic expectations.
Hyde is calling for a renewed effort to teach the public about scientific norms, which would be done through science education and communication to eliminate the "naïve" view of science as infallible.

Honorary Research Associate at Bangor University, Byron Hyde said, "Scientists and government leaders know that public trust in science is important because it enables informed decisions, guides public policy, and supports collective actionon critical issues like health, climate, and technology. If science isn't trusted, society becomes more vulnerable to misinformation and less able to effectively respond to complex challenges such as pandemics. Though it is often assumed transparency will increase trust in science, I argue that it can decrease trust in science instead.

"The truth is science isn't perfect. Scientists are just as biased and equally as liable to make mistakes as everyone else. Most people think that science is and ought to be a lot better than it is or is even capable of being. I argue that people lose trust in science when it doesn't match their expectations. This means that they distrust science that's untrustworthy but, if their expectations are too high, it also means that they don't trust science that's imperfect but still trustworthy."

Hyde says that the problem is that, although scientific facts are taught at school, the facts "about" science are not taught well enough.

He added, "For example, most people know that global temperatures are rising, but very few people know how we know that. Not enough people know that science 'infers to the best explanation' and doesn't definitively 'prove' anything. Too many people think that scientists should be free from biases or conflicts of interest when, in fact, neither of these are possible. If we want the public to trust science to the extent that it's trustworthy, we need to make sure they understand it first."

 

[Lemmingwiser]

Too many people think that scientists should be free from biases or conflicts of interest when, in fact, neither of these are possible. If we want the public to trust science to the extent that it's trustworthy, we need to make sure they understand it first."

So perhaps it's fine if people don't trust science and scientist too much. Why exactly is it so essential for the public to trust science so much if you know it's not possible for scientists to be free from biases or conflict of interests?

People still overwhelmingly believe in the 'storybook image' of a scientist who makes no mistakes

Lmao, they even admit people trust scientists too much.

Consensus not concurrence, which unironically is why Galileo got punished. Galileo literally didn't own his work and part of his struggles with the Church was, iirc, his patron had beef with them and he couldn't actually prove half of his conclusions even with his work. He got fucked in his trial because he antagonized multiple orders of priests even after two popes pulled his ass out of the fire

He also received a commission from the pope to write his best defense of heliocentrism and Galileo decided the best way to please his boss was to write a fictious discussion between a stupid character called simplicio (sounds like simpleton in italian) who says exact quotes that the pope has also said. And makes it lose the dialog and sound stupid each time, while there are two other characters, one smart galileo self insert that keeps winning by defending heliocentrism and one smart and neutral one that keeps being convinced by galileo's self-insert.

Enlightenment is a bit like feminism that it had to go back in time and turn some not great people into mistreated saintly heroes.

See also lgbtq and Alan Turing, who gets full credit for cracking enigma, ignoring all the work that the Polish did on it.

 

[Barry McKockner]

"Science" is not an ideology to be believed or trusted. Science is a means of understanding the observable universe. Even the deists who spawned from the Enlightenment knew this. Anyone who says otherwise is usually a self-described "atheist" who really just replaced God with "science," which are just studies and articles that reinforce their worldview

Science became an ideology when it was determined to be the perfect tool to co-opt as a method of brainwashing the masses. Science doesn't have a "you're not telling the truth" problem, it has a "we've propped it up as THE unquestionable source for truth, and now we'll use it to provide selective views that we want propogated" problem.

 

[Kheapathic]

"Science" is not an ideology to be believed or trusted. Science is a means of understanding the observable universe. Even the deists who spawned from the Enlightenment knew this. Anyone who says otherwise is usually a self-described "atheist" who really just replaced God with "science," which are just studies and articles that reinforce their worldview

The blind science worshippers is why I started calling these people soulless husks; and it's not because I have such deep religious convictions I think these people are truly puppets without a conscience, but they are severely lacking any sort of inner voice and are unable to question anything, while simultaneously boasting that they're educated and more intelligent than... anyone to the political right of them. Blind adherence and screaming "The Science is Settled" when they never seemed to understand what the people they place on pedestals went through. Ignatius Semmelweis had his reputation ruined and the medical community had him placed in an asylum, because he dared to suggest that maybe the washing of hands has a medical/health benefit, and he wasn't just talking shit, he wrote shit down and showed his work. He's my favorite example, but there's also other stories of this great mathematician or sage who was standing up to the church and the mob, and how much we owe to them. Mother-fucker, in their day, TheScienceWasSettled™ and here you are claiming the moral and intelligent high ground, while placing yourself in the position of the mob/church which you claim to hate. And you don't even need to be in direct opposition of what TheScience™ says; the Corona vaccine manufacturers being allowed to keep all their data sealed for 70 years or whatever it was and there's no legal recourse for any medical problems that arise. Can we please agree that, that sort of behavior/stipulations deserve to be questioned? No, because The Science is Settled.

No inner voice, no independent thought, no spark of creation; soulless fucking husks.

 

[Cardef1121]

Nobody distrusts the scientific method. What people distrust is people who use 'science' as a shield to lie in order to advance their agenda. In other words, this.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

"Trust" is not the word I would have here. Rather "Believe": people believe us when we lie.

Then it seems like a healthy distrust of science is completely rational behavior.

In a subconscious way, we all do it. Someone who's told they have an incurable disease is gonna look for a second opinion or even a third one until they get the one they want. It doesn't matter if this third doctor is lying or they indeed have found a new treatment that could work, it might be a survival mechanism to keep on living. The fight itself might even give you a few years.

I understand scientists being frustrated that they explain something, then a person jumps to the wrong conclusion based on a different part of science/life that doesn't apply to the situation at hand. But it's ok to question things. Scientists need to learn how to explain things clearly to people outside their space.

Yeah in my experience, engineers usually are too autistic and can't explain clearly to others who aren't engineers without using technical terms.

If you can't explain it briefly, you didn't really understand it.

We're being forced to endure too many idiots who don't want to explain things but rather show off their education. The result is that their patients (or clients) try to find an explanation that's simpler, and in some cases, inaccurate or misleading. Vaccination seems to be the biggest example of this: inappropriate disclosure of mRNA mechanism made people turn fully anti vaccination.

Even the progressives favorite black science man said something about how he doesn't want truth, he wants concurrence.

He's not entirely wrong that concurrence is necessary for science. Anecdotal events aren't evidence and too many people consider their own anecdotal cases all the evidence they need (again, vaccination...)

But people like him seems to force that concurrence rather than accept it as a natural event: "let's find 100 scientists that agree" vs "let's see what's the outcome of 100 different experiments".

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Nobody distrusts the scientific method. What people distrust is people who use 'science' as a shield to lie in order to advance their agenda. In other words, this.

Ironically, it's the "I fucking love science" crowd the ones who distrust the scientific method the most, and these tend to be leftists.

"We asked 100 boys what they like to play with and 98 chose cars while 2 of them said they like Barbies, so we can't really conclude that boys like to play with cars as not all of them chose them".

All gender theory is basically this.

 

[Farmholio]

The study revealed that, while transparency about good news increases trust, transparency about bad news, such as conflicts of interest or failed experiments, decreases it.

Uh DUHHHH.
Transparency is an end to itself. The goal isn't to make people accept the soyence, it's to create an institution with accountability. Some public distrust is perfectly healthy.

If science isn't trusted, society becomes more vulnerable to misinformation

Misinformation according to the established institution, he means.

Scientists unironically bitching about disagreement in discourse, smh my head.

 

[Kheapathic]

He's not entirely wrong that concurrence is necessary for science. Anecdotal events aren't evidence and too many people consider their own anecdotal cases all the evidence they need (again, vaccination...)

But people like him seems to force that concurrence rather than accept it as a natural event: "let's find 100 scientists that agree" vs "let's see what's the outcome of 100 different experiments".

He's not wrong, but the problem is how we get there and how many liberties get taken with what studies (if any) show and if it's even good science to begin with. The decades of lost Alzheimer research comes to mind, because everything was based on some made up bullshit that was passed off as true. People demanding for those who refused the Corona vaccine to be cast out of society as science deniers and other crazy shit. The entirety of trans bullshit, to include being able to install female exclusive internals onto a dude and expecting it to function normally. Science replaced religion and their zealots are just as bad if not worse, since we now have The Internet for people to reinforce each other.

 

[ZazietheBeast]

Lysenkoism has made quite the resurgence and it has fucked up science in general. Until Wokism dies screaming in a fire, this sentiment isn't going to change.

 

[Corn Wizard]

The problem here isn't that everyone's suddenly anti-science to the point that if it declared that breathing underwater would make you drown, everyone would vehemently disagree and take the deepest breath at the nearby pool to ackshually you to oblivion, but rather that scientists demand you to buy whatever they claim without question. This article admits that they too have their biases, and nobody's perfect, so why should there be an issue with questioning a claim here or there, especially if its results seem off or flat-out wrong?

Take climate change, for one example. How many times were they 100% sure Earth was gonna collapse every few years because of too much carbon or methane, or how they insist you'll magically stop it by swapping out your gas-powered ICE car for a delivered-over-seas-by-overlooked-diesel-powered-ship EV with an environmentally-unfriendly lithium-ion battery or erasing meat from your diet and replacing it with overprocessed, nutritionally-void, plant-based Beyond Slop?

For another, what about the complete lie that is gender insanity? These same people tell you that sex is "assigned" at birth, there are a million ways to be a woman but can't define a single one, and letting children get their bodies mutilated under the guise of "gender affirmation," yet can't understand why people aren't so fast to just buy whatever The Experts say anymore. I guess telling people the sky is green when they see it's blue doesn't exactly give you a positive reputation amongst the masses in the long run, but hey, at least you've still got the I Fucking Love Science crowd from Reddit still!

If they really wanted people to trust them more, there wouldn't be such scrutiny over questioning the so-called "facts." After all, no amount of criticism and denial invalidates a genuine truth. I can't speak for others, but if there is a person, group, belief or entity that claims to always be correct but will aggressively attack, demonize or silence anyone for any amount of dissent, even if it is mere difference of opinion, it tells me that its "truth" is so structurally sound that it'd fall apart if any doubt or disbelief is present, much like modern "science" here. There's a reason you were banned off of every major platform for questioning COVID vaccines and troons not long ago, after all, and most still do it to a degree.

 

[Positron]

Because the goal of Science is not truth, but public opinion.

Nobody distrusts the scientific method.

A growing number of working scientists now do. They think Big Data can replace the old boring hypothetico-deductive model.

It is almost impossible to be transparent with Big Data, so I guess it arrives at the right time, when Scientism (as opposed to Science) is having a credibility crisis.

 

[Melee Bouquet]

There’s no paradox in people distrusting you when they find out you’re corrupt and incompetent. It’s so sublimely lulzy to watch the practiced confusion of the ~scientific community~ as they look around in amazement, astonished at being admonished by outsiders.

What they really value is authority, not the truth, which means they aren't going to understand until things are stated in their language. Reform happens with speedy trials, public executions, and other (vulgar) displays of power.

 

[Damocles_Sword]

Scientists like any employee will tell you exactly what their patron pays them to tell you. Tobacco companies hired teams of scientists to extoll the virtues of going to flavor country. Combine that with the communification of the education system turning every scientist into an activist to the point that we can't go into space anymore because out scientists' collective brainpower is being used to create the gender blender and their and other activists complete totalitarian behavior during the ching chong choke and you have practically zero public trust in what is clearly the corpse of science being piloted by communists extremists trying to bring on the eternal revolution via a new religion.

 

[Gianfranco Pizzaballa]

If you are trying to design something for use in the physical world, you had better be able to "trust the science" that went into say the Bernoulli equation. The article has a shitty headline because the researcher isn't condoning lying or suppressing null results he is stating that scientists and educators fail to manage the public's expectations. The US should have learned this lesson from the nuclear industry and other politicized technologies many times over.

 

[deleuzeon]

The study revealed that, while transparency about good news increases trust, transparency about bad news, such as conflicts of interest or failed experiments, decreases it.

Therefore, one possible solution to the paradox, and a way to increase public trust, is to lie (which Hyde points out is unethical and ultimately unsustainable), by for example making sure bad news is hidden and that there is always only good news to report.

"When people find out we screwed up, they trust us less." Yeah, that's what happens. Disturbing that a "study" was commissioned for this, wasting time and money. They probably should have lied about having done that.

 

[Super Guido]

Yeah funny enough, I do distrust the results of a study that has an obvious conflict of interest. The solution to me seems like maybe biased bought and paid for studies with obvious conflicts of interest should be disregarded or not published at all.

Nooo! You must trust the studies funded by Junk Food Inc that our product is safe, even healthy, to consume!

 

[Lady Bizness]

I used to teach high school science. The article suggests teaching more science literacy. I don't know what they think science educators are trying to do, but even the most retarded curriculum is trying to teach science literacy. This is going to change as "other ways of knowing" is starting to have its way with science education institutions, but that's another story.
The problem is that people are stupid and incurious, and it is not just a phase of puberty. Incuriosity seems to live on through adulthood. I used to be excited by the increasing number of atheists but after meeting a few and then observing what has followed on from that trend I realize that humans are a fundamentally religious species. All that has happened is that the Christian God was removed. Beliefs, rituals, and commandments are still there and somehow the burden of moral rectitude has been put on Science, which is the harshest most amoral thing out there.
Today's Science is magic.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

Thought the whole point of science was that you don't have to "trust" it for it to work. Thought the whole point was that unlike ideologies based in superstition and tradition, you can question it infinitely and only strengthen the endeavor.

Wasn't that the whole deal with science? That it was worth spending money and time on because it is resilient to attacks and questions and all forms of truth-seeking? That when you find flaws in it, scientists, unlike the priests of old, will try to refute your hypothesis but if it turns out to be true they'll incorporate it into their viewpoints after a process of experimentation and validation?

If it's just another ideology to "trust" and "believe," rather than to "test" and "push to the breaking point" in order to make sure the ideas are right, then I think religion's a better bet. It's been around for longer and it changes more slowly due to shifts in politics and social ideas.

 

[deleuzeon]

The problem is that people are stupid and incurious, and it is not just a phase of puberty. Incuriosity seems to live on through adulthood. I used to be excited by the increasing number of atheists but after meeting a few and then observing what has followed on from that trend I realize that humans are a fundamentally religious species. All that has happened is that the Christian God was removed. Beliefs, rituals, and commandments are still there and somehow the burden of moral rectitude has been put on Science, which is the harshest most amoral thing out there.
Today's Science is magic.

The only reason God died is that the achievements of science made it untenable to believe in miracles like returning from the dead, turning water into wine, walking on water, feeding ten thousand people with one fish, and so on. Regardless of how figurative these miracles obviously always were, low-IQ people have never perceived them as figurative. Living in a post-scientific revolution world, even the dumbest peasant is routinely confronted with demonstrable facts that contradict religious narrative. But these dumb peasants are not, themselves, scientists, nor inclined to the rigorous humility necessary to be a true member of that category. As you said, they have simply shifted their religious relationship onto "the idea of science," with their priests being its mass-market communicators like Carl Sagan, Neil Tyson, Bill Nye and so on

 

[Major Pain]

There is Soy-ience
There is (((Science)))
And then here is data backed, empirical evidence, logical conclusion, scientific theory practising Science.
And only one of them allows you to question it,