In 2022, the world produced 3.3 million peer-reviewed articles in science and engineering. This shows 65 percent increase from 2010. More research, more knowledge, more solutions. The Slow Science Manifesto 2026 sees this less as a sign of growth and more as a symptom of crisis. Scientific progress is becoming increasingly incremental. Major conceptual advances are growing rarer. Researchers are burning out. And the collaboration is giving way to competition.
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The Slow Science Manifesto emphasizes the rising publication volumes, worsening working conditions, declining research integrity, and growing inequity.
The deeper issue, as Isabelle Stengers argues in Another Science is Possible, is cultural and philosophical. Scientists have become specialists who produce results, not connoisseurs who can evaluate what they produce. The problem is not that the public fails to understand science. It is that science has failed to become understandable.
Why Scientists Need Connoisseurs
In 2004, a group of researchers produced a document relevant to the topic. The occasion was the États généraux de la recherche, a national consultation on the future of research in France. Researchers were asked to explain to the public what the public should understand about science. Their report offered this diagnosis:
Citizens expect solutions from science for all sorts of social problems: unemployment, depleted oil reserves, pollution, cancer … the path that leads to the answers to these questions is not as direct as a programmatic vision of research would have us believe … Science can only function by dealing with its own problems and in its own way, shielded from urgency and from the distortions inherent in economic and social contingencies.
The document did not say science cannot solve unemployment. It said unemployment can be solved by science but only if scientists are allowed to work without being annoyed by noisy citizens and their messy unreasonable concerns. The citizens are right to trust science, but they have to learn to wait.
Isabelle Stengers argues, this study is not an isolated case. It reflects a broader pathology in scientific culture.
The Goose That Lays the Golden Egg
The researchers in 2004 were complaining about the knowledge economy. They explained the familiar theme of the goose that lays the golden egg: stand back, keep it well fed, don’t ask difficult questions, or you will kill it and there will be no more eggs.
The goose does not wonder for whom her eggs are golden. She simply produces. The generally beneficial character of scientific progress is taken-for-granted. The small question of why progress might today be associated with unsustainable development is not asked. Or the equally small question of whether the golden eggs are being distributed equitably does not arise.
Stengers believes that researchers cannot talk openly about what they know. They cannot, because they fear that if the public were to become aware of how science is made and their confidence would collapse. Scientific proposals would be reduced to expressions of particular interests. People must continue to believe in the fable of free research, driven only by curiosity toward the discovery of the world’s mysteries.
So scientists have good reason to be uneasy, but they cannot say so. They can no more denounce those who feed them than parents can argue in front of their children. Nothing should upset the confident belief in Science.
This is not a strategy, Stengers says. It is a trap.
— Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, quoted in Stengers (2018, p. 17)
In 2004, the États généraux de la recherche produced a summary report telling citizens:
“Citizens expect solutions from science for all sorts of social problems: unemployment, depleted oil reserves, pollution, cancer … Science can only function by dealing with its own problems in its own way, shielded from urgency and from the distortions inherent in economic and social contingencies.”
The document did not say science cannot solve unemployment — it said unemployment can be solved by science, but only if scientists are left alone.
Stengers’ diagnosis: The 2004 report was not an outlier. It was a perfect expression of what scientific institutions have become: defensive, self-important, and incapable of hearing themselves. The goose that lays the golden egg does not get to decide who collects the eggs.
Specialists produce results. Connoisseurs evaluate what is produced, assess the information they are given, discuss its relevance, and differentiate between propaganda and calculated risk.
As Stengers quotes Lévy-Leblond:
“If scientism and irrationalism, traditional foes, are still going strong, it is because uncultivated science turns as easily into the cult of science as into occult science.”
- Produce results
- Answer questions
- Speak in the name of Science
- Protect public confidence
- Demand autonomy
- Evaluate quality
- Recognise which questions matter
- Speak with intellectual honesty
- Earn public trust
- Accept accountability
This is Lévy-Leblond’s clarion call. It is not a complaint about public ignorance — it is a diagnosis of institutional failure. The “indifferent confidence” of the public betrays the absence of demanding connoisseurs who can hold scientists to account.
Implication: Had such an environment existed in 2004, the researchers would have thought twice before writing what they did.
- Presented as settled
- Beyond debate
- Laboratory-defined
- The authority of Science
- Require hesitation
- Demand choice
- Context-dependent
- Public deliberation
In the laboratory, GMOs are defined by the preoccupations of biologists working in well-monitored spaces. But GMOs cultivated across thousands of hectares raise questions about genetic transfer and pesticide-resistant insects — questions that cannot be raised at the laboratory level.
Then there are patent applications, biodiversity reduction, and the runaway use of pesticides. These are not matters of fact. They are matters of concern.
Public Understanding suggests passive reception of established knowledge. Public Intelligence suggests active, critical relationship — not just with scientific outcomes, but with scientists themselves.
Stengers proposes replacing “public understanding of science” with “public intelligence of the sciences.” This is not semantic nitpicking.
- Public is ignorant
- More education needed
- Scientists are authorities
- Resistance is irrational
- Trust should be protected
- Public is capable
- Institutions need to be accountable
- Scientists must be understandable
- Resistance may be rational
- Trust must be earned
- Not everyone becoming a connoisseur in every field — that is impossible and unnecessary.
- But creating conditions in which scientific claims can be evaluated by people who know enough to ask the right questions — not because they are scientists, but because they are citizens with stakes in the outcomes.
This demands a form of “slow science” that resists the pressure to produce results on demand, to answer questions before they have been properly posed, to simplify complexity into soundbites. It demands a science willing to be uncertain, to hesitate, to admit it does not know.
As Stengers implies: This is not a science that solves problems faster. It is a science that solves problems better.
How would a “public intelligence” work in practice?
- Who would participate?
- How would they be trained?
- What authority would they have?
What would make scientists want to become connoisseurs rather than specialists? The incentives of the current system — publications, grants, promotions — all reward the opposite.
Challenge: The dominant training culture has produced researchers who can produce results but who may not have cultivated the capacity to reflect on what they are producing.
Are scientists as homogeneous as Stengers assumes? Many researchers are already self-critical, already engaged in public communication that goes beyond the deficit model. But they are swimming against the current.
The question: Can the current be changed?
Stengers’ manifesto leaves us with: The question is not whether the public can understand science. The question is whether science can become something worth understanding — and whether scientists can become people worth trusting.
The Connoisseur Problem
The physicist Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond has argued that the question of being capable or not is equally relevant to scientists themselves. As he explains, and as Stengers quotes him, if scientism and irrationalism, are still going strong, it is because uncultivated science turns as easily into the cult of science as into occult science. He was not just talking about the public. He was talking, perhaps above all, about scientists themselves.
What Lévy-Leblond calls “scientific culture” is not general scientific literacy, knowing something about atoms, DNA, or physical laws. A cultivated science should produce not only specialists but connoisseurs, people who can evaluate what is produced, assess the information they are given, discuss its relevance, and differentiate between propaganda and calculated risk.
Stengers continues, this is not a complaint about public ignorance. It is a diagnosis of institutional failure. The indifferent confidence of the public, which scientists feel they must protect against doubt, betrays the absence of demanding connoisseurs. The connoisseurs who can hold scientists to account.
Matters of Concern, Matters of Fact
Bruno Latour‘s phrase matters of concern is useful here. In opposition to what are presented as matters of fact, it insists that we think, hesitate, imagine, and take sides. Concern incorporates notions of preoccupation and choice, but also the idea that there are situations which concern us before they become objects of choice, situations that demand that we feel concerned.
The essential thing about matters of concern is to get rid of the idea that there is a single right answer. Yet scientific institutions, the State, and industry all have converging interests in presenting innovations as the correct solution in the name of science. The public is told that if it resists, it fails to understand.
But what if the scientists are the ones who fail to understand? What if they have been trained to answer questions without learning to recognize which questions are being asked?
The Intelligence the Public Already Has
Stengers proposes replacing “public understanding of science” with “public intelligence of the sciences” Understanding suggests passive reception of established knowledge. Intelligence suggests active, critical relationship. Not just with scientific outcomes, but with scientists themselves.
Public intelligence does not mean everyone becomes a connoisseur in every field. That is impossible and unnecessary, she says. But it does mean creating the conditions in which scientific claims can be evaluated by people who know enough to ask the right questions. Of course, not because they are scientists, but because they are citizens who care about the outcomes.
What Cultivated Science Would Look Like
As Stengers and Lévy-Leblond suggest, the problem is not science itself but scientism, meaning that the uncritical belief that Science with a capital S is the only legitimate way of knowing. A cultivated science would be one where scientists recognize that they are vulnerable to the same temptations as the public: the temptation to believe, the temptation to simplify, the temptation to mistake authority for evidence. It would be a science where researchers expect to be questioned by people who know enough to be demanding.
Scientism is a luxury that scientists cannot afford. It makes them arrogant when they should be humble, certain when they should be hesitant, defensive when they should be self-critical.
Stengers does not deny that scientists face real pressures. The 2004 report’s complaints about the knowledge economy were legitimate. Her point is that the response—protecting public innocence—was self-defeating. Scientists demand autonomy from distortions while claiming to serve society. They demand trust while refusing accountability. They complain about public ignorance while remaining ignorant of what they are doing when they speak in the name of Science.
The Trap of Indifferent Confidence
Consider what scientists are protecting when they protect public confidence. They are protecting the belief that science is pure, disinterested, and above the fray of social and economic contingencies. This belief is not just false. It is harmful.
The researchers in 2004 were right to be worried about the knowledge economy. They were wrong to think they could preserve their autonomy by preserving public innocence. The goose that lays the golden egg does not get to decide who collects the eggs.
Scientists have good reason to be uneasy. But they cannot say so. They can no more denounce those who feed them than parents can argue in front of their children. So they speak in indirectly. They ask citizens to wait while science solves problems like unemployment, as if unemployment were a technical problem awaiting a technical solution. This is not just dishonest. It is unsustainable. The contradiction is visible to anyone paying attention.
What the Public Actually Needs
Stengers believes that public needs more scientists who are capable of being understood, who can present their results lucidly, situate them in relation to the questions they can actually answer, and distinguish between what is known, what is uncertain, and what is merely asserted.
This requires scientists to become connoisseurs of their own practice. It requires them to recognize that the indifferent confidence of the public is not a resource to be protected. It requires them to accept that their work is never just “scientific” but it is always political, economic, and social, whether they like it or not.
None of this is easy. It demands a form of “slow science” that resists the pressure to produce results on demand, to answer questions before they have been properly posed, to simplify complexity into soundbites. It demands a science that is willing to be uncertain, to hesitate, to admit that it does not know.
As Stengers implies, this is not a science that solves problems faster. It is a science that solves problems better. It is a science that knows its own limits, and respects them.