David Broniatowski

Screen shot of the following text: One of the striking things about the reaction to this preprint is how often it treats disclosure standards as if they must be invented from scratch. They don’t. In biomedicine, where the stakes are unmistakably high, disclosure norms are not casual, and they are not left to intuition. The ICMJE guidelines—used by most major medical journals—define conflicts of interest broadly: not only employment and direct funding, but advisory roles, collaborations, and other relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence judgment. Under those standards, many of the ties identified in this preprint would straightforwardly qualify as conflicts that should be disclosed. And we don’t find this strange in medicine. We would not blink at the claim that co-authoring with a tobacco company scientist is a disclosable relationship when writing about tobacco control. Even if the specific paper was not funded by Philip Morris. Even if the collaborator is methodologically impeccable. Even if the conclusions are sound.

Some reflections by @broniatowski.bsky.social on our preprint and some of the discussion around what constitutes a conflict of interest in @kakape.bsky.social's write-up.

A few thoughts and reflections below 🧪

broniatowski.substack.com/p/when-is-a-...

We don’t need louder certainty.
We need clearer responsibility — and institutions willing to bear the consequences of restoring legitimacy.

Standing up for science shouldn’t mean asking science to rule.
It should mean insisting that science not be used as political cover — and not be sacrificed when that cover fails.

That path is less satisfying emotionally. It offers fewer villains and no quick moral wins. But it’s how trust is rebuilt without turning science into a faction.

The harder path is insisting on answerability:
clear separation between advising and deciding,
visible ownership of decisions by political leaders,
and honest acknowledgment of value tradeoffs.

If we frame accountability primarily as purification — who belongs, who is beyond the pale — we risk deepening the legitimacy crisis we’re trying to solve.

But history is clear: removal never cleanly restores legitimacy. It provokes backlash, rebellion, and renewed challenges to authority. Institutions have to be prepared to absorb that — not pretend it won’t happen.

Sometimes legitimacy does require removing bad actors from positions of authority. Avoiding that conversation isn’t realistic.

Anthropologist Mary Douglas suggested that when procedural authority weakens, groups compensate by tightening identity and policing boundaries. That move can feel stabilizing — but it accelerates polarization, purity tests, and endorsement of conspiracy theories.

But there’s a risk here. Activism shifts authority from process to moral identity: trust us because we are on the right side.

This is where activism enters — understandably. When institutions fail, moral clarity feels like the only thing left to stand on.

When decisions inevitably went wrong under uncertainty, science became the fall guy — not because it lied, but because responsibility had been misallocated.

Politics has parties, elections, leadership turnover. Science doesn’t. In the blame economy, that asymmetry matters.

Experts stepped in to help. That was understandable. But science is built to advise, not to decide — and it lacks the institutional machinery to absorb blame when decisions go badly.

During COVID, scientists didn’t seize power. Political leaders delegated it — often publicly — because they were unwilling or unable to make hard, value-laden decisions themselves.

But I think we need to ask a harder question:
what kind of authority are we actually defending when we defend “science”?

I want to start with agreement: there has been real harm, real misinformation, and real bad faith from people in power. Silence was never a neutral option.

When Authority Slips What Moses Can Teach Science About Legitimacy

This is a thread for people who care deeply about science and democracy — especially those who feel the pull toward “standing up for science” in a moment of real institutional failure (longer version at this substack: substack.com/home/post/p-...).

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But here’s the hard part: removing a person often doesn’t fix the underlying problem, especially if the problem is how decisions get made, not just who made them.

When institutions lose trust, people naturally look for someone to blame. Calling for removal, impeachment, or expulsion can feel like the only way to signal “this isn’t okay.”

That reaction is understandable.

What I’m struggling with—and what I think many of you are struggling with too—is how to push back without making the long-term problem worse.

I want to be clear about my own position first. Criticism and accountability are necessary. I don’t support the actions of politicians who make their name by promoting misinformation.

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Looking forward to reading this piece! She's on to something...