Some potential explanations for the #COVID19 Science Wars (select multiple): 1/ https://twitter.com/JeanneLenzer1/status/1333408972288774146

The polarization of everything: discussion is often anchored along the lines of this horrible, vague, politically entangled term ‘lockdown’ that polarizes discussion into constructed ‘for’ and ‘against’ positions on a plethora of discrete positions and policies. 2/

Belief factions ( http://bostonreview.net/science-nature-politics/cailin-oconnor-james-owen-weatherall-hydroxychloroquine-and-political): rival knowledge communities (realized on e.g. Twitter, Facebook) preferentially share, believe and endorse certain information. Science may be caught up in this phenomenon. 3/

(Social) media science and policy: a lot of scientific and policy discussion is taking place in the media and social media rather than in traditional settings, which often doesn’t lend itself to collegial, productive discussion. 4/

Science in real time: we are seeing science play out in real time. Uncertainty over very unsettled scientific questions permits normal, rational disagreement. 5/

Fast science, bad science: fast science promotes bad science, bad science promotes criticism and disagreement. 6/

Disciplinary diversity and epistemic trespassing: related to the previous, people from diverse disciplines are getting involved, but some might be overstepping their expertise and committing ‘epistemic trespassing’ ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/madhukarpai/2020/10/30/pandemic-or-not-experts-need-to-be-self-aware-and-humble/?sh=3027960c4e0b). 7/

Disciplinary diversity and different philosophies: different individuals (e.g. those trained in EBM vs. infectious disease epidemiology) may rely on different kinds of evidence, reasoning, and decision-making, leading to disagreements ( http://bostonreview.net/science-nature/jonathan-fuller-models-v-evidence#:~:text=Evidence%20is%20also%20needed%20to,scratching%20out%20other%20hypothetical%20worlds). 8/

Policy proxy war: disagreements over policy/values/decisions can masquerade as disagreements over science or evidence. Policy wars can be fought via proxy wars over empirical research ( https://bostonreview.net/science-nature-philosophy-religion/jonathan-fuller-pandemic-facts-pandemic-policies). 9/

What have I neglected to mention? 10/

We could examine the ‘Ioannidis Affair’ through the lens of these potential explanations: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-ioannidis-affair-a-tale-of-major-scientific-overreaction/ 11/

Forgot to mention an important one... Artifact: reports of disagreement within the scientific or public health community are exagerrated, amplified or artifactual 12/