LAUSR

In the 2014–2015 season, the National Basketball Association (NBA) joined other major sports and incorporated an instant replay judge for controversial decisions. Referees are still responsible for maintaining order and fair play, but they no longer bear the burden of ultimate authority alone. Slow-motion, high-resolution replay analysis of every play, every call, and every nuance of the game is now available for replay judges who help referees make the right call. Professional sports referees are trained professional observers with encyclopedic knowledge of the game. They combine their knowledge and talents with careful judgment and a keen insight for the context of the moment and their decisions are now scrutinized like never before. The larger problem that extends beyond our trust in sports referees is that referees are under assault everywhere in society today. In 2017, the New York Times fired its public editor, an internal watchdog position that was established on the heels of the Jayson Blair scandal, a former New York Times reporter who was caught fabricating news stories. In a comment on why theNew York Times eliminated this position, publisher Arthur Sulzberger claimed that the public editor was no longer necessary: “our followers on social media and our readers across the Internet have come together to collectively serve as a modern watchdog, more vigilant and forceful than one person could ever be. Our responsibility is to empower all of those watchdogs, and to listen to them, rather than to channel their voice through a single office.” What the Times effectively decided to do was substitute popular opinion for professional judgment. The New York Times was not alone in this decision. In 2013, the Washington Post eliminated its ombudsman, and in May 2018, ESPN did the same. There is an increasing tendency to allow the crowd to determine truth, correct the facts, and call out conflicts of interest. But no one mourns the loss of the referee until they need one. Is this cultural shift away from the professional referee toward the court of public opinion shaping the conduct and public perceptions of science? There is a growing mistrust of science, and there are multiple reasons to explain this phenomenon. High-profile accounts of scientificmisconduct are growingmore frequent. Earlier this year, Sapan Desai (founder of Surgisphere Corp.) was associated with two very public retractions, one in Lancet and one in theNewEngland Journal of Medicine, both related to COVID-19 treatments. Trust is also eroded by the misuse of social media to foment disinformation where the hyperpolarized court of public opinion yields little useful transfer of knowledge and boundless opportunities for facts to be misapplied, misconstrued, and misunderstood. The algorithms of social media platforms are not designed to promote fairness, truth, or trust. The objective is user engagement and shaping behavior for an economic benefit. Truth is irrelevant. There is evidence that social media platforms facilitate polarization in our communities, which can help amplify wrong information. Recent findings showed that misinformation spreads via social media platforms measurably faster than truth, and that may have very real harmful consequences when we are talking about science.