Why science institutions shouldn’t do political endorsements

An interesting article in Nature about the impact of Nature endorsing Joe Biden in 2020.

Overall, the study provides little evidence that the endorsement changed participants’ views of the candidates. 

So they didn’t have any impact on the candidates.

Those who viewed the endorsement also rated Nature significantly lower as an unbiased source of information on contentious or divisive issues. 

So the endorsement didn’t help Biden or damage Trump, but did damage Nature.

Zhang also found that viewing Nature’s political endorsement reduced Trump supporters’ willingness to obtain information about COVID-19 from Nature by 38%, when compared with Trump supporters who saw the formatting announcement. This finding echoes other work on how partisanship influences interest in scientific information⁵. Furthermore, Trump supporters who viewed the endorsement also rated US scientists, in general, as much less well informed and unbiased than did Trump supporters who viewed the formatting article. 

So basically an own goal.