Scientific Art as Public‑Science Infrastructure

Institutions’ commissioned scientific illustrations function as durable public‑science infrastructure: they translate technical models into emotionally compelling visuals that mediate public trust and policy receptivity. Because the public often treats such images as empirical depiction, the production, provenance, and labeling of scientific art should follow transparent standards similar to data‑provenance rules. — If recognized, this would force journals, observatories and museums to adopt explicit provenance, captioning and verification norms for illustrative imagery, affecting science communication, policy debates, and misinformation risks.