Academic Fashion Drives False Beliefs

Sometimes entire academic generations accept implausible claims because social forces within disciplines — prestige, cohort signaling, and unexamined dogma — outweigh direct empirical checks. These fashions create durable fads that can mislead public policy and science even after the original arguments were weak or absent. — If academic fashions make false claims seem authoritative, public policy, media coverage, and public trust can be distorted for decades.