Laura Gradowski

We take up the challenge of developing an international network with capacity to survey the world’s scientists on an ongoing basis, providing rich datasets regarding the opinions of scientists and scientific sub-communities, both at a time and also over time. The novel methodology employed sees local coordinators, at each institution in the network, sending survey invitation emails internally to scientists at their home institution. The emails link to a ‘10 second survey’, where the participant is presented with a single statement to consider, and a standard five-point Likert scale. In June 2023, a group of 30 philosophers and social scientists invited 20,085 scientists across 30 institutions in 12 countries to participate, gathering 6,807 responses to the statement Science has put it beyond reasonable doubt that COVID-19 is caused by a virus. The study demonstrates that it is possible to establish a global network to quickly ascertain scientific opinion on a large international scale, with high response rate, low opt-out rate, and in a way that allows for significant (perhaps indefinite) repeatability. Measuring scientific opinion in this new way would be a valuable complement to currently available approaches, potentially informing policy decisions and public understanding across diverse fields.

The rejection of research results is sometimes thought to be justified in cases of individuals embracing fringe ideas that depart significantly from prevailing orthodoxy, or in cases of individuals who lack appropriate expertise or credentials. The case of John Garcia exhibits both of these dimensions, and illustrates that such rejection can delay scientific advancements. Garcia’s work decisively challenged what was the orthodoxy in psychology in the midcentury: behaviorism. Behaviorist learning theorists suffered from theory-entrenchment insofar as they failed to acknowledge Garcia’s anomalous research findings that ran counter to their theoretical expectations. The case study also illustrates that theories on the margins can become embraced as a result of advancements in adjacent research fields. Studying how Garcia’s work moved from fringe to mainstream results in lessons for the philosophy of science and epistemology more generally. Only when we see the mechanisms of exclusion at work can we understand how science and other knowledge production systems can inadvertently act counterproductively via gatekeeping practices that filter out unorthodox points of view.