The Price of Partisan Advocacy by Science Institutions
New evidence should have us asking: is it worth it?
The list of scientific institutions that have taken overt partisan positions — or stances that create a strong impression of partisanship — is notable:
In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, Nature, Scientific American, the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Science published editorials criticizing Donald Trump and urging voters to replace him, marking the first presidential endorsements in the histories of several of these publications.
Eighty-one American Nobel laureates endorsed Joe Biden.
Four years later, Nature and Scientific American endorsed Kamala Harris.
The 2017 “March for Science” brought more than a million participants to rallies worldwide. More than 100 scientific organizations endorsed the march — among them the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Psychological Association, the American Anthropological Association, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Organizers insisted the march was political but not partisan — after all, what could be partisan about marching for science?
However, the reality was that the “March for Science” was less about science and more about marching against President Donald Trump. A survey of participants in the march at three locations published in Science Communication, found that among the 110 participating scientists surveyed, exactly one — <1% — self-identified as Republican, while ~72% identified as Democrats, as you can see in the figure below.
At best, the march was a form of stealth partisan advocacy, endorsed by more than 100 scientific societies.
A study of the effects of the march on public opinion — published in PS: Political Science & Politics — found that the march reinforced polarization:
“Liberals’ attitudes toward scientists became more positive whereas conservatives’ attitudes became more negative.”
The authors concluded:
“this research calls attention to the possibility that the political actions of scientists can shape public opinion about them.”
New empirical research finds that partisan political advocacy by authoritative institutions comes at a heavy price paid in diminished overall public confidence — not just among conservatives but also independents — as well as increased polarization.
None of this has happened in a vacuum. Trust in scientists, which spiked during the early COVID-19 pandemic, has since eroded sharply and unevenly. The share of Americans expressing a great deal of confidence in scientists fell from 39% in 2020 to 23% by 2023, while those expressing not too much or no confidence rose from 12% to 27% over the same period.
A modest recovery followed — Pew’s 2024 survey found overall confidence at 76% — but the deeper pattern is accelerating partisan divergence: 88% of Democrats express confidence in scientists versus 66% of Republicans, and Republicans remain far more likely to oppose scientists’ active engagement in policymaking. Gallup’s 2025 confidence survey placed science at 61% overall — higher than other institutions, but historically low.
Starting in 2005 at the University of Colorado Boulder, I embarked on a project to host public events and interviews with all of the (then) living current and former science advisors to the U.S. president — Conversations with Presidential Science Advisors. We hosted science advisors who served presidents from John F. Kennedy through Barack Obama and every one in between.
In 2006 I interviewed Frank Press who had served as President Jimmy Carter’s science advisor in the 1970s. After that, in the early 1980s he became the president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. I asked him why, during his tenure, the National Academy of Sciences never undertook a study of the scientific and technical aspects of President Ronald Reagan’s proposed Strategic Defense Initiative — SDI, popularly known as “Star Wars”.
His answer has stuck with me for 20 years.
Press explained that a sign-on petition opposing SDI had circulated among the scientific community, drawing signatures from roughly sixty percent of Academy members. He said that he believed that the petition had compromised the Academy’s ability to lend an independent voice to the debate as any NAS report — even if put together by a balanced expert committee — would face dismissal in the political process because the institution had seemingly already signaled its position on the political debate.
A potentially valuable independent assessment of the SDI proposal never materialized. The cost of the sign-on petition was paid in the inability to secure legitimate, authoritative expert advice. We all paid that price.
Empirical support for Press’ intuition can be found in a 2023 preregistered large-sample experiment published in Nature Human Behaviour. That study explored the public opinion consequences of Nature‘s 2020 endorsement of Joe Biden. It found that the endorsement caused large reductions in stated trust in Nature among Trump supporters, lowered their demand for COVID-related information from the journal — including substantially reduced requests for vaccine efficacy articles — and reduced their trust in scientists generally. Effects on Biden supporters’ trust were positive, small, and mostly statistically insignificant.
The people who were going to vote for Biden anyway liked the endorsement. Those who weren’t did not. More polarization was the result. It turns out that a science journal in London really doesn’t move voters in the U.S. with an endorsement. But the endorsement nonetheless had effects.
Even with the results of this study in hand, in 2024 Nature responded by doubling down, issuing an endorsement of Kamala Harris. I discussed Zhang’s findings in two posts at THB — November 2023 and April 2024 — and noted that Nature received clear experimental evidence of self-inflicted harm on the community that it serves and then — chose to continue inflicting that harm.
A new paper, just published in Group Processes & Intergroup Relations (ungated preprint at PsyArXiv), significantly extends and reinforces the earlier conclusions. Three pre-registered experiments, 6,281 participants, spanning both the 2020 and 2024 elections tested five journals in 2020 (the same ones that issued endorsements) and three in 2024. Participants read either a neutral description of a journal’s history and mission or the same description alongside excerpts from its actual presidential candidate endorsement text.
Participants who read the endorsements reported lower trust in science as an institution, stronger belief that science lacks impartiality, higher general distrust, greater agreement that scientists’ personal values shape their findings, and reduced confidence that science benefits society. The 2020 studies found endorsements also increased conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 and the scientific enterprise itself.
The figure below converts findings from the paper’s three studies to a 0–100 scale (from its original 1–9 scale) and shows the change in trust resulting from the endorsements, by political orientation:
The study found that decreasing trust occurred not just among self-described conservatives, but also moderates. Self-described liberals showed small responses, and without statistical significance.
To be clear — Nothing in this evidence argues against scientists speaking their minds based on both their expertise and their citizenship. As THB readers know well, I strongly believe in academic freedom and that academic freedom includes the freedom to speak politically. I do it all the time.
A journal holds a very different position than an individual expert: It is an institution of expertise. Its authority derives from its claim to serve science — and through science, to serve the public, all of the public whether far left, far right, or anywhere in between. When an authoritative scientific institution — whether a journal, university, or national academy — uses its authority in service of a subset of the public and opposed to another subset, there can be no surprise that those being opposed (or perceiving being opposed) respond by questioning the legitimacy and authority of that institution.
Of course, the current dynamics within the scientific community can make leadership difficult for those who would eschew overt partisanship. As the scientific community has become more left-leaning overall and prominent voices demand even more partisanship, eschewing partisanship may not be popular among many in the community. For some, partisanship by scientific institutions is a feature and not a flaw. That makes scientific leadership that navigates competing pressures more important than ever.
Recent research on 98,000 academics on X/Twitter found that non-partisan scientists draw the most public credibility, and more intense political expression is associated with less perceived credibility. Yet, even so, many scientists recognize this trade-oof and nearly half post political content anyway, credibility be damned.
The incentives for scientists to express themselves politically in the attention economy diverge sharply from the collective interest of scientific institutions.
In a hard-hitting essay in Skeptic, “The Siren Song of Influence,” Cory Clark and Bo Winegard argue that the attention economy has warped incentives across science more broadly:
[I]n the age of social media, a growing number of scientists appear less interested in the patient work of discovery and more interested in being political influencers. They post partisan hot takes, endorse candidates, and signal ideological commitments, often leveraging their authority as scientists to advance personal or political aims. This doesn’t just alienate half the country (usually the right-leaning half); it undermines the hard-won and always precarious reputation of science as a dispassionate arbiter of truth. The more we scientists insert ourselves into political battles, the more we risk losing the very authority we seek to protect.
The calculus involved with an individual scientist deciding to try their lot as a political influencer is markedly different from that calculus for an institution of science. Somewhere along the way, leaders of scientific institutions seem to have missed the significance of this distinction.
In a 2004 paper in Environmental Science & Policy, I similarly argued that scientists using institutional authority to advance partisan agendas rather than illuminate policy choices trade away the credibility that gives scientific expertise its public value.
A few years later, in The Honest Broker I described the choices scientists and the institutions they inhabit face in how they relate to broader society. Each of the four roles it describes — pure scientist, science arbiter, issue advocate, honest broker — entails real tradeoffs. Individual scientists who choose to become advocates make a legitimate choice, with costs and benefits. The same goes for each of the other roles.
Institutions face choices as well, but the costs and benefits will be different and far more significant than those faced by individuals.
Research now helps us to better understand those costs and benefits. Institutional partisan advocacy — overt or stealth — comes with a price paid in the erosion of public trust and increased polarization over science.
The question that we should ask leaders of institutions of science — who are supposed to serve everyone — Are the costs of partisan advocacy worth it?
Before you go: If you think institutions of science should serve everyone, please click that “❤️ Like” button. More likes means more readers of THB. Thanks!
Comments, questions, conversation, critique, and debate — All invited!
For further reading
Syropoulos et al. (2026). Presidential Candidate Endorsements by Scientific Journals Decrease Trust in Science Especially for Moderate and Conservative Americans. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. Preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/qn2ha_v2
Zhang, F.J. (2023). Political endorsement by Nature and trust in scientific expertise during COVID-19. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(5), 696–706.
Ross, A.D., Struminger, R., Winking, J., & Wedemeyer-Strombel, K.R. (2018). Science as a public good: Findings from a survey of March for Science participants. Science Communication, 40(2), 228–245.
Motta, M. (2018). The polarizing effect of the March for Science on attitudes toward scientists. PS: Political Science & Politics, 51(4), 782–788.
Pew Research Center (2024). Public trust in scientists and views on their role in policymaking.
Alabrese, E., Capozza, F., & Garg, P. (2024). Politicized scientists: Credibility cost of political expression on Twitter. Working paper.
Clark, C. & Winegard, B. (2025). The siren song of influence. Skeptic.
Pielke, R.A. (2004). When scientists politicize science. Environmental Science & Policy, 7(5), 405–417.
Pielke, R.A. (2007). The Honest Broker. Cambridge University Press.
About two years ago I started reading Thomas Sowell. No one has influenced my thinking more than Sowell. Sowell’s books cover a number of broad areas, one of those being the influence of intellectuals on our society. Dr. Sowell points out that intellectuals face few negative consequences when their promoted policies and ideas fail.
The scientists that Roger Pielke talks about fall into this category. Google AI summaries several of the books on intellectuals that Sowell has written about:
Intellectuals and Society (2010, 2012) examines how "idea workers" exert massive influence on public policy and culture without being accountable for the frequently disastrous consequences of their theories.
Intellectuals and Race (2013): Explores how the ideas and crusades of intellectuals have shaped racial perceptions and strife, often causing harm.
The Vision of the Anointed (1995): Critiques the tendency of elites to believe they have the superior insight to solve societal problems, leading to flawed social policy
Intellectuals are often well educated in very narrow subfields, but think of themselves as smarter, wiser, and more morally superior than the rest of us. They believe their narrow expertise makes them qualified to tell all the rest of us how to live our lives. This attitude of superiority without paying a price for being wrong is why I find it very difficult to listen to almost any of them.
"... petition had compromised the Academy’s ability to lend an independent voice to the debate as any NAS report — even if put together by a balanced expert committee — would face dismissal in the political process because the institution had seemingly already signaled its position on the political debate."
Precisely. Any political opinion expressed by any scientist or engineer, disqualifies him or her from any participation as an expert on that subject and it invalidates anything they write on it. Same with judges.
Admittedly, I went to college before dirt, but I don't remember any of my professors expressing a political opinion in class or out of class, even when asked to. I miss the old days, compared to them, modern academics seem very juvenile. No wonder nobody trusts them anymore.