Human intuition is essential to science: Why metrics will not improve scientific governance

Scientists not only rely on knowledge reflected in textbooks and papers, but on their intuitions and experience. Answering scientific questions requires imagining what might be the case and then exploring it. Eric Giannella argues the uncertainty of science makes intuition and judgement essential. Yet the effect of metrics is to reduce the role of judgment. Even the most sophisticated set of metrics will not be able to account for scientists’ tacit knowledge.