Foundations of Science 21 (1):15-33 (2016)
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| Abstract |
A consensus in a scientific community is often used as a resource for making informed public-policy decisions and deciding between rival expert testimonies in legal trials. This paper contains a social-epistemic analysis of the high-profile Bendectin drug controversy, which was decided in the courtroom inter alia by deference to a scientific consensus about the safety of Bendectin. Drawing on my previously developed account of knowledge-based consensus, I argue that the consensus in this case was not knowledge based, hence courts’ deference to it was not epistemically justified. I draw sceptical lessons from this analysis regarding the value of scientific consensus as a desirable and reliable means of resolving scientific controversies in public life
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| Keywords | Expert testimony Consensus Science and policy Science and technology studies Social epistemology |
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| DOI | 10.1007/s10699-014-9373-z |
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Citations of this work BETA
Catching the WAVE: The Weight-Adjusting Account of Values and Evidence.Boaz Miller - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 47:69-80.
“Trust Me—I’M a Public Intellectual”: Margaret Atwood’s and David Suzuki’s Social Epistemologies of Climate Science.Boaz Miller - 2015 - In Michael Keren & Richard Hawkins (eds.), Speaking Power to Truth: Digital Discourse and the Public Intellectual. Athabasca University Press. pp. 113-128.
Social Epistemology as a New Paradigm for Journalism and Media Studies.Yigal Godler, Zvi Reich & Boaz Miller - forthcoming - New Media and Society.
The Semantics of Untrustworthiness.Giuseppe Primiero & Laszlo Kosolosky - 2016 - Topoi 35 (1):253-266.
View all 13 citations / Add more citations
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