> What happens when the public lose confidence in academic findings? When some X accumulates a track record of not working, people give up on X. Maybe then X

> What happens when the public lose confidence in academic findings? When some X accumulates a track record of not working, people give up on X. Maybe then X will get improved, and slowly people will give it another chance. The OP seemed to be mostly about the quality of the science in the social sciences. Hmm .... But, in medicine, there are efforts to be careful. E.g., can test a new drug with double blind randomized placebo controlled trials. Maybe that methodology is good enough to be trusted? It appears that I trusted it when I got two shots and a booster from Moderna against Covid. In math, hmm ..., if there is a claim of solid proof, published in a respected peer reviewed journal, and so far no one has found any flaw in the proof, then some trust can be justified. The gravitational detection work of LIGO is astounding, and I'm trusting it. And I have yet to check in detail the math of general relativity -- it's on my long term TODO list! And I trust the claims for the Webb Space Telescope, and the reasoning for its location at a Lagrange 2 point. So, in medicine, math, and physics, I can have some trust! For the social sciences, my view is influenced by my wife and brother, both of whom tried those, got Ph.D. degrees, etc.