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The Problem of Intransigently Biased Agents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Bennett Holman  and
Justin P. Bruner
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Abstract

In recent years the social nature of scientific inquiry has generated considerable interest. We examine the effect of an epistemically impure agent on a community of honest truth seekers. Extending a formal model of network epistemology pioneered by Zollman, we conclude that an intransigently biased agent prevents the community from ever converging to the truth. We explore two solutions to this problem, including a novel procedure for endogenous network formation in which agents choose whom to trust. We contend that our model nicely captures aspects of current problems in medical research and gesture at some morals for medical epistemology more generally.

Type
Game Theory and Formal Models
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 956 - 968
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

This work was largely completed while the authors were graduate students at the University of California, Irvine. A special thanks to Kyle Stanford for his encouragement and the trust he placed in me (B. H.) to find my own way. We both owe a debt of gratitude to Brian Skyrms and the rest of the UCI Social Dynamics Seminar for providing direction during the formative stages of this work. Thanks also to audiences at the Formal Epistemology Workshop and the Understanding Epistemic Injustice Conference for their feedback on earlier versions of this work. Finally, our most sincere appreciation goes to Benjamin Rin for reading a final draft with characteristic persnicketiness.

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