Neomania: How Our Obsession With Innovation is Failing Science, and How to Restore Trust - cover image

Copyright

Krist Vaesen

Published On

2026-02-06

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80511-781-0
Hardback978-1-80511-782-7
PDF978-1-80511-783-4
HTML978-1-80511-785-8
EPUB978-1-80511-784-1

Language

  • English

Print Length

198 pages (xiv+184)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 14 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.55" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 18 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.71" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback386g (13.62oz)
Hardback559g (19.72oz)

Media

Illustrations9
Tables3

THEMA

  • PDA
  • JHB
  • PDX
  • QDTK
  • KJMV6
  • JPP

BISAC

  • SCI075000
  • SCI034000
  • PHI004000
  • BUS108000

Keywords

  • Replication crisis
  • Innovation
  • History, sociology and philosophy of science
  • Open Science
  • Scientific coordination

Neomania

How Our Obsession With Innovation is Failing Science, and How to Restore Trust

  • Krist Vaesen (author)
Contemporary science faces a profound poly-crisis: replication failures, weak theories, poor generalizability, and declining public trust. Neomania contends that these symptoms stem not merely from flawed practices or institutional pressures, but from a deeper cultural pathology—our collective obsession with innovation. This valorization of the new for its own sake has reshaped the scientific enterprise, privileging novelty over reliability and fragmentation over coordination.

Drawing on metascience as well as the philosophy and sociology of science, Neomania offers a critical analysis of how this ethos has permeated the norms and institutions of modern science. The book traces its historical emergence, diagnoses its systemic consequences, and articulates a reform agenda centered on coordination, shared research programs, and epistemic integrity—an agenda that goes well beyond the principles of Open Science.

Neomania advances a constructive vision for rebuilding science as a coherent and truth-oriented system. Combining philosophical depth with institutional analysis, it addresses students, scholars, policymakers, and practitioners concerned with the organization of knowledge production in an era of epistemic crisis. It is both a critique of contemporary scientific culture and a normative proposal for its renewal.

Additional Resources

Contributors

Krist Vaesen

(author)
Associate Professor of Philosophy of Innovation at Eindhoven University of Technology

Krist Vaesen is an Associate Professor of Philosophy of Innovation at Eindhoven University of Technology (the Netherlands) and serves as director and co‑founder of META/e—the Eindhoven Meta‑science Center. This interdisciplinary center focuses on the scientific study of science itself, with expertise in areas such as Open Science, reproducibility, team science, and the role of AI in research. 'Neomania' owes much to the many insightful conversations with members of META/e.