Introduction: COVID-19 Models and the Difficult Balance between Methods and Values

The COVID-19 pandemic had an unprecedented impact not only on the socio-economic and political conditions worldwide but also on the practices of the scientific community and on the public image of science itself. The scientific community suddenly found itself in the spotlight and was pressured to rapidly produce evidence applicable to the management of the present health crisis. This in turn had some unexpected consequences, among which an increase of the publication speed and sometimes a decrease of the quality of peer review (see e.g., Chan 2020). At the same time, the public discussion of scientific issues related to COVID-19 among an audience often lacking the appropriate knowledge of the characteristics of modern science (e.g., critical reasoning, hypothetical nature of research, the role of uncertainty, … ), was associated with the emergence of extreme stances in the population.