The Decline of Science

Bots to the fore?

As I pointed out in my answer to one of our readers, asking questions is difficult. You are often seen as an outsider wanting to disrupt the status quo for a political agenda.

We do not have an agenda other than sticking to evidence. However, around us, things have taken a turn for the worse for a variety of reasons, some crystal clear, some murky, and some unknown.

We have been toying with the idea of doing an occasional piece to shed light on different aspects of what we see as the decline of science and what others see as an attempt to use science to censor free thought and impose “order.”

This morning, Tom kicks off the series with a brief episode. During the night, Tom, like most other researchers, gets emails saying that XYZ had cited this or that publication of his. Reputable research platforms and databases send the emails. The message is usually something like “Tom, we found a recent citation of …