### more\/science in trouble Science is central for us because it's one of the clearest paths to making sense of the disintegration of our shared reality. And because we care. But it's currently in deep trouble and not just because of the destruction inflicted by Trump. It did not come out of the blue. For decades, scientists have been on an accelerating publication treadmill for the sake of productivity metrics that count numbers of papers, an algorithm chosen by administrators. In 2021, James Evans and colleagues analyzed tens of millions of academic papers and confirmed the obvious: "a deluge of papers does not lead to turnover of ideas but rather to ossification of canon". The administrators also concentrated resources in a few centers of excellence to increase productivity. When the analysis was finally done the verdict was again clear and predictable: "breakthrough advances emerge across, rather than within researchers or teams". Nothing changed. By now, scientists spend more time applying for grants than the time grants buy them (and that's the lucky ones: 70% of scientists are in gig contracts and can't even apply). Science has disconnected from the public sphere, with the last few science journalists fired in 2023. The scientists who tried to fill the void on social media went quiet as the bots and abuse took over. In this environment, Pew's report that "[Americans trust in science continues to decline](https://www.pewresearch.org/Science/2023/11/14/americans-trust-in-scientists-positive-views-of-science-continue-to-decline/)" or Nature's "[Disruptive science has declined—and no one knows why](https://nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04577-5)_"_ read like dark jokes. We see all this as science also suffering from the hard lean to code, forced to pretend to be its image. It also needs changes in the wider culture to return to health, and it can still contribute to finding that health (most obviously, it knows how to move beyond functionalism).