Hurried science and the tracking problem

Abstract

In times of crisis, science tends to move fast. However, speeding up science often involves deliberate compromises to the scientific norms that are meant to guarantee the reliability of scientific results in normal circumstances. Call this hurried science. Some of the compromises involved in hurried science can be kept track of and later revisited—say, by conducting a new study with larger sample sizes and proper randomization. However, I argue that hurried science may also involve untracked compromises to reliability-enhancing scientific norms, in which the negative epistemic effects of speeding up scientific research are not properly noticed or understood. I further argue that these are considerably more worrying for the overall reliability of scientific research, insofar as they are liable to lead both scientists and the general public to overestimate the trustworthiness of scientific results.