What makes science trustworthy to the public? This chapter examines one proposed answer: the trustworthiness of science is based at least in part on its independence from the idiosyncratic values, interests, and ideas of individual scientists. That is, science is trustworthy to the extent that following the scientific process would result in the same conclusions, regardless of the particular scientists involved. We analyze this "idiosyncrasy-free ideal" for science by looking at philosophical debates about inductive risk, (...) focusing on two recent proposals which offer different methods of avoiding idiosyncrasy: the high epistemic standards proposal and the democratic values proposal. (shrink)

We provide an analysis of the public's having warranted epistemic trust in science, that is, the conditions under which the public may be said to have well-placed trust in the scientists as providers of information. We distinguish between basic and enhanced epistemic trust in science and provide necessary conditions for both. We then present the controversy regarding the connection between autism and measles–mumps–rubella vaccination as a case study to illustrate our analysis. The realization (...) of warranted epistemic public trust in science requires various societal conditions, which we briefly introduce in the concluding section. (shrink)

Social scientists have begun elucidating the variables that influence public trust in science, yet little is known about hype in biotechnology and its effects on public trust. Many scholars claim that hyping biotechnology results in a loss of public trust, and possibly public enthusiasm or support for science, because public expectations of the biotechnological promises will be unmet. We argue for the need for empirical research that examines the relationships between (...) hype, public trust, and public enthusiasm/support. We discuss the complexities in designing empirical studies that provide evidence for a causal link between hype, public trust, and public enthusiasm/support, but also illustrate how this may be remedied. Further empirical research on hype and public trust is needed in order to improve public communication of science and to design evidence-based education on the responsible conduct of research for scientists. We conclude that conceptual arguments made on hype and public trust must be nuanced to reflect our current understanding of this relationship. (shrink)

Building, restoring and maintaining well-placed trust between scientists and the public is a difficult yet crucial social task requiring the successful cooperation of various social actors and institutions. Kitcher’s takes up this challenge in the context of liberal democratic societies by extending his ideal model of “well-ordered science” that he had originally formulated in his. However, Kitcher nowhere offers an explicit account of what it means for the public to invest epistemic trust in science. (...) Yet in order to understand how his extended model and its implementation in the actual world address the problem of trust as well as to evaluate it critically, an explicit account of epistemic public trust in science needs to be given first. In this article we first present such an account and then scrutinize his project of building public trust in science in light of it. We argue that even though Kitcher’s ideal model and his proposals for its implementation in the real world face a number of problems, they can be addressed with the resources of our account. (shrink)

In this paper, I distinguish three general approaches to public trust in science, which I call the individual approach, the semi-social approach, and the social approach, and critically examine their proposed solutions to what I call the problem of harmful distrust. I argue that, despite their differences, the individual and the semi-social approaches see the solution to the problem of harmful distrust as consisting primarily in trying to persuade individual citizens to trust science and that (...) both approaches face two general problems, which I call the problem of overidealizing science and the problem of overburdening citizens. I then argue that in order to avoid these problems we need to embrace a (thoroughly) social approach to public trust in science, which emphasizes the social dimensions of the reception, transmission, and uptake of scientific knowledge in society and the ways in which social forces influence both positively and negatively the trustworthiness of science. (shrink)

The demise of the value-free ideal constitutes a threat to public trust in science. One proposal is that whenever making value judgments, scientists rely only on democratic values. Since the influence of democratic values on scientific claims and recommendations is legitimate, public trust in science is warranted. I challenge this proposal. Appealing to democratic values will not suffice to secure trust because of at least two obstacles: polarization and marginalization.

There is a growing consensus among philosophers of science that core parts of the scientific process involve non-epistemic values. This undermines the traditional foundation for public trust in science. In this article I consider two proposals for justifying public trust in value-laden science. According to the first, scientists can promote trust by being transparent about their value choices. On the second, trust requires that the values of a scientist align with the (...) values of an individual member of the public. I argue that neither of these proposals work and suggest an alternative that does better. When scientists must appeal to values in the course of their research, they should appeal to democratic values: the values of the public or its representatives. (shrink)

What accounts for the prestige of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is desirable in social investigation as a result of its successes in science. Trust in Numbers questions whether such success in the study of stars, molecules, or cells should be an attractive model for research on human societies, and examines why the natural sciences are highly quantitative in the first place. Theodore Porter argues that a better understanding of the attractions of quantification in business, (...) government, and social research brings a fresh perspective to its role in psychology, physics, and medicine. Quantitative rigor is not inherent in science but arises from political and social pressures, and objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts. In a new preface, the author sheds light on the current infatuation with quantitative methods, particularly at the intersection of science and bureaucracy. (shrink)

Public trust in business is one of the most important but least understood issues for business leaders, public officials, employees, NGOs and other key stakeholders. This book provides much-needed thinking on the topic. Drawing on the expertise of an international array of experts from academic disciplines including business, sociology, political science and philosophy, it explores long-term strategies for building and maintaining public trust in business. The authors look to new ways of moving forward by (...) carefully blending the latest academic research with conclusions for future research and practice. They address core drivers of public trust, how to manage it effectively, the consequences of low public trust, and how best to trust challenges and restore trust when it has been lost. This is a must-read for business practitioners, policy makers and students taking courses in corporate social responsibility or business ethics. (shrink)

“Public Trust in Expert Knowledge: Narrative, Ethics, and Engagement” examines the social, cultural, and ethical ramifications of changing public trust in the expert biomedical knowledge systems of emergent and complex global societies. This symposium was conceived as an interdisciplinary project, drawing on bioethics, the social sciences, and the medical humanities. We settled on public trust as a topic for our work together because its problematization cuts across our fields and substantive research interests. For us, (...) trust is simultaneously a matter of ethics, social relations, and the cultural organization of meaning. We share a commitment to narrative inquiry across our fields of expertise in the bioethics of transformative health technologies, public communications on health threats, and narrative medicine. The contributions to this symposium have applied, in different ways and with different effects, this interdisciplinary mode of inquiry, supplying new reflections on public trust, expertise, and biomedical knowledge. (shrink)

In 2015 scientists called for a partial ban on genome editing in human germline cells. This call was a response to the rapid development of the CRISPR–Cas9 system, a molecular tool that allows researchers to modify genomic DNA in living organisms with high precision and ease of use. Importantly, the ban was meant to be a trust-building exercise that promises a ‘prudent’ way forward. The goal of this paper is to analyse whether the ban can deliver on this promise. (...) To do so the focus will be put on the precedent on which the current ban is modelled, namely the Asilomar ban on recombinant DNA technology. The analysis of this case will show (a) that the Asilomar ban was successful because of a specific two-step containment strategy it employed and (b) that this two-step approach is also key to making the current ban work. It will be argued, however, that the Asilomar strategy cannot be transferred to human genome editing and that the current ban therefore fails to deliver on its promise. The paper will close with a reflection on the reasons for this failure and on what can be learned from it about the regulation of novel molecular tools. (shrink)

Biomedical science suffered a loss of trust during the Covid‐19 pandemic. Why? One reason is a crisis fueled by confusion over the epistemology of science. Attacks on biomedical expertise rest on a mistaken view of what the justification is for crediting scientific information. The ideas that science is characterized by universal agreement and that any evolution or change of beliefs about facts and theories undermines trustworthiness in science are simply false. Biomedical science is trustworthy (...) precisely because it is fallible, admits error, adjusts to new information, and, most importantly, is practical. Successful diagnosis and cure demarcate the boundaries of warranted knowledge. The other reason is sociological. As the pandemic made all too clear, the loss of faith in scientific experts was due to the failure of most of them to engage in regular public dialogue, reflecting a failure to recognize the obligation that science has to bolster trust in its work and findings by concerted public engagement. (shrink)

This letter responds to the essay “Securing the Trustworthiness of the FDA to Build Public Trust in Vaccines,” by Leah Z. Rand, Daniel P. Carpenter, Aaron S. Kesselheim, Anushka Bhaskar, Jonathan J. Darrow, and William B. Feldman, in the special report “Time to Rebuild: Essays on Trust in Health Care and Science,” in the September‐October 2023 issue of the Hastings Center Report.

In the coming decades, highly treated wastewater, known as reclaimed water, is slated to be a major element of municipal water supplies. In particular, planners propose supplementing drinking water with reclaimed water as a sustainable solution to the growing challenge of urban water scarcity. Public opposition is currently considered the primary barrier to implementing successful potable water reuse projects; nonetheless, public responses to reclaimed water are not well understood. Based on a survey of over 250 residents of Tucson, (...) Arizona, this article assesses the relationship between trust in the professional institutions responsible for municipal water development and willingness to drink reclaimed water. Results demonstrate that public acceptance of potable reuse is contingent on trust in the authorities who influence design of sociotechnical systems for water supply and reuse—including water and wastewater utilities, regulators, consultants, academics, and elected local officials. Findings emphasize the highly interdependent social and political factors that inform personal decisions to support or reject potable reuse. The authors suggest that achieving greater acceptance of potable reuse will require bringing local and regional water policy in line with public values, as well as finding ways to incorporate these values into the planning process. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic and global climate change crisis remind us that widespread trust in the products of the scientific enterprise is vital to the health and safety of the global community. Insofar as appropriate responses to these crises require us to trust that enterprise, cultivating a healthier trust relationship between science and the public may be considered as a collective public good. While it might appear that scientists can contribute to this good by taking (...) more initiative to communicate their work to public audiences, we raise a concern about unintended consequences of an individualistic approach to such communication. (shrink)

Conflicts of interest have an erosive effect on trust in science, damaging first the attitude of the public toward scientists and their research, but also weakening the trusting interdependence of scientists. Disclosure is recognized as the key tool for management of conflicts, but rules with sanctions must be improved, new techniques for avoidance of financial conflicts by alternative funding of evaluative research must be sought, and there must be new thinking about institutional conflicts of interest. Our profession (...) is education, and both the public and research professionals of all ages would benefit from greater understanding of how science should and does work. (shrink)

As a result of the world-wide COVID-19 epidemic, an internal tension in the goals of medicine has come to the forefront of public debate. Medical professionals are continuously faced with a tug of...

Trust in the scientific enterprise — in science as an institution — is arguably important to individuals’ and societies’ well-being. Although some measures of public trust in science exist, the recipients of that trust are often ambiguous between trusting individual scientists and the scientific community at large. We argue that more precision would be beneficial — specifically, targeting public trust of the scientific community at large — and describe the development and validation (...) of such an instrument: the Scientific Community Trust Index (SCTI). We show the results of initial field testing to establish instrument reliability and validity. We then demonstrate certain advantages of the SCTI against other measures of trust and deference, and present correlations between the SCTI and participant scores in two trust-in-science scenarios. Our results suggest that the SCTI is a useful and compact tool for measuring public trust in the scientific community. (shrink)

Public trust of conventionally produced food is now a pivotal issue for the Canadian food supply chain as consumers are increasingly demanding traceability, transparency and sustainability of the agri-food system. To ensure that Canadians understand what farmers do, how they do it, and why—there has been significant human and financial investment by both the agri-food industry and government over the last decade. Farmers, civil servants, and non-farming agricultural professionals alike are being encouraged to join the national conversation promoting (...) the legitimacy of conventional agriculture. As part of this large-scale effort, women in agriculture are advocating, in gendered ways, for the safety and legitimacy of the agri-food system and its conventional farming practices. This is being done by utilizing their motherhood capital. This motherhood capital legitimizes the authority granted to mothers as expert decisionmakers regarding their children’s food consumption. Through the usage of their motherhood capital, women are being positioned—and are positioning themselves—as an important voice in re-narrating the story of conventional agriculture through the circulation of their maternal foodwork experiences. Using their authority as mothers they are advocating for the safety, necessity, and trustworthiness of conventional agriculture to counter narratives of mistrust and risk. (shrink)

Gene editing in agriculture and food (GEAF) is a nascent development with few products and is unfamiliar among the wider US public. GEAF has garnered significant praise for its potential to solve for a variety of agronomic problems but has also evoked controversy regarding safety and ethical standards of development and application. Given the wake of other agribiotechnology debates including GMOs (genetically modified organisms), this study made use of 36 in-depth key interviews to build the first U.S. based typology (...) of proponent and critic priorities for shaping public trust in GEAF actors and objects. Key organizational actors provide early and foundational messaging, which is likely to contribute heavily to public salience, comprehension, and decision-making as potential consumers reflect upon their experiences, envision future outcomes, and consider the reputation of those trying to influence them. As is documented in our results, the trust-building priorities of these groups often stand in opposition to one another and are influenced by distinct motivations for how the public will come to trust or distrust GEAF actors and objects as more products are developed and enter the market. (shrink)

The 2020 introduction by China’s central government of a national security law in Hong Kong marked a watershed moment in the social and political history of the semiautonomous city. The law emerged after months of street protests that reflected declining public trust in Hong Kong’s government. Against this turbulent backdrop, Hong Kong’s policy projects moved forward, including smart city development. This article explores public trust in and political legitimacy of Hong Kong’s smart cities endeavors in the (...) period leading up to the introduction of the NSL. At a theoretical level, the smart cities phenomenon invites critical reflection about tensions between technocracy and democracy, but this topic remains largely unexploited by empirical literature. Using survey data from 1,017 residents, this study identifies confidence in the benefits of smart cities but lesser trust in privacy and security and lesser satisfaction with participation opportunities in related policymaking. Probing these dynamics, the study finds that trust in smart city mechanics and governance associate positively with support for smart cities, controlling for ideology and issue awareness. Illuminating a theoretical and practical puzzle, these findings contribute empirically to discussions about the political legitimacy of scientific, technological, and technocratic undertakings in the public sector. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the concept of public trust in science and offers some guidance for ethicists, scientists, and policymakers who use this idea defend ethical rules or policies pertaining to the conduct of research. While the notion that public trusts science makes sense in the abstract, it may not be sufficiently focused to support the various rules and policies that authors have tried to derive from it, because the public is not a uniform body (...) with a common set of interests. Well-focused arguments that use public trust to support rules or policies for the conduct of research should specify (a) which public is being referred to (e.g. the general public or a specific public, such as a particular community or group); (b) what this public expects from scientists; (c) how the rule or policy will ensure that these expectations are met; and (d) why is it important to meet these expectations. (shrink)

At a book event in March last year—one year into the pandemic and four months after mass immunization programs began—Goldenberg voiced her concerns about the timing of her book's launch into the world. This anxiety is echoed in the preface of the book itself, where she notes that the emergence of a global pandemic as she completed five years of work threatened to introduce a whole new set of issues that might fundamentally alter the book's arguments. Goldenberg's concern is understandable: (...) since the publication of her book, it is undeniable that public trust in vaccines and the experts who advocate for them have been constant topics of debate.This engagingly... (shrink)

In this study we analyze a recent controversy within the biomedical world, concerning the evaluation of safety of certain vaccines. This specific struggle took place among experts: the Danish epidemiologist Peter Gøtzsche on one side and a respected scientific institution, the Cochrane, on the other. However, given its relevance, the consequences of such a conflict invest a much larger spectrum of actors, last but not least the public itself. Our work is aimed at dissecting a specific aspect happening in (...) this complex scenario: strategy. In other words, we want to highlight the value and the impact of strategic decisions when complex issues, as those analyzed, are at stake. In order to address this we have decided to adopt a game-theoretic approach. Our work will be structured as it follows. First, we will introduce the controversy and the two main actors: Peter Gøtzsche and the Cochrane. Second, we will explain why this controversy is important and its value beyond its academic relevance. Third, we will frame the controversy as a game and will provide several models representing different situations, also furnishing an analysis of these distinct scenarios. In the end we will argue why such game-theoretic approach can be useful in dissecting this type of issues. (shrink)

Regulatory agencies aim to protect the public by moderating risks associated with innovation, but a good regulatory regime should also promote justified public trust. After introducing the USDA 2020 SECURE Rule for regulation of biotech innovation as a case study, this essay develops a theory of justified public trust in regulation. On the theory advanced here, to be trustworthy, a regulatory regime must (1) fairly and effectively manage risk, must be (2) “science based” in (...) the relevant sense, and must in addition be (3) truthful, (4) transparent, and (5) responsive to public input. Evaluated with these norms, the USDA SECURE Rule is shown to be deeply flawed, since it fails appropriately to manage risk, and similarly fails to satisfy other normative requirements for justified trust. The argument identifies ways in which the SECURE Rule itself might be improved, but more broadly provides a normative framework for the evaluation of trustworthy regulatory policy-making. (shrink)

We discuss the relationship between expertise, expert authority, and trust in the case of vaccine research and policy, with a particular focus on COVID-19 vaccines. We argue that expert authority is not merely an epistemic notion, but entails being trusted by the relevant public and is valuable if it is accompanied by expert trustworthiness. Trustworthiness requires, among other things, being transparent, acknowledging uncertainty and expert disagreement (e.g., around vaccines’ effectiveness and safety), being willing to revise views in response (...) to new evidence, and being clear about the values that underpin expert recommendations. We explore how failure to acknowledge expert disagreement and uncertainty can undermine trust in vaccination and public health experts, using expert recommendations around COVID-19 vaccines as a case study. (shrink)

Over the past decades, public trust in medical professionals has steadily declined. This decline of trust and its replacement by ever tighter regulations is increasingly frustrating physicians. However, most discussions of trust are either abstract philosophical discussions or social science investigations not easily accessible to clinicians. The authors, one a surgeon-turned-philosopher, the other an analytical philosopher working in medical ethics, joined their expertise to write a book which straddles the gap between the practical and theoretical. (...) Using an approach grounded in the methods of conceptual analysis found in analytical philosophy which also draws from approaches to medical diagnosis, the authors have conceived an internally coherent and comprehensive definition of trust to help elucidate the concept and explain its decline in the medical context. This book should appeal to all interested in the ongoing debate about the decline of trust - be it as medical professionals, medical ethicists, medical lawyers, or philosophers. (shrink)

This is an excellent book. It is written at the intersection of philosophy of medicine, social epistemology, science and technology studies, and public policy. It conceptualizes the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy as an understandable attitude that, when sizeable enough, causes vaccine refusal. Its focus is on pre-COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and primarily on parental decisions about childhood vaccinations. Its publication, one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, comes at a fortuitous time because it can help us view our urgent concerns (...) about the sorry state of vaccine uptake in the industrialized North in a broader context. It is an optimistic book with faith in the reasonableness of human beings, sympathy for the... (shrink)

The emergence of modern science is a history of disentanglement, as science detached itself first from religion and then from philosophy. Jennifer Trusted in Physics and Metaphysics argues that science -- in its haste to tear itself from its historical links -- has neglected the various roles religious and philosophical ideas have actually played and continue to play in scientific thinking. This book seeks to redress the balance by exploring how metaphysical beliefs have functioned in the history (...) of scientific inquiry and discovery. By examining the history of science from the eleventh century to the present, this book shows how religious and mystical beliefs, as well as philosophical speculation, have had a considerable role in motivating scientists and inspiring scientific inquiry. Physics and Metaphysics presupposes no technical knowledge of either philosophy or science, and as such it is an ideal introduction to science and the importantforces that have shaped its history and ideas. (shrink)

Trust has become an important aspect of evaluating the relationship between lay public and technology implementation. Experiences have shown that a focus on trust provides a richer understanding of reasons for backlashes of technology in society than a mere focus of public understanding of risks and science communication. Therefore, trust is also widely used as a key concept for understanding and predicting trust or distrust in emerging technologies. But whereas trust broadens the (...) scope for understanding established technologies with well-defined questions and controversies, it easily fails to do so with emerging technologies, where there are no shared questions, a lack of public familiarity with the technology in question, and a restricted understanding amongst social researchers as to where distrust is likely to arise and how and under which form the technology will actually be implemented. Rather contrary, ‘trust’ might sometimes even direct social research into fixed structures that makes it even more difficult for social research to provide socially robust knowledge. This article therefore suggests that if trust is to maintain its important role in evaluating emerging technologies, the approach has to be widened and initially focus not on people’s motivations for trust, but rather the object of trust it self, as to predicting how and where distrust might appear, how the object is established as an object of trust, and how it is established in relation with the public. (shrink)

Jennifer Trusted's new book argues that metaphysical beliefs are essential for scientific inquiry. The theories, presuppositions and beliefs that neither science nor everyday experience can justify are the realm of metaphysics, literally `beyond physics'. These basic beliefs form a framework for our activities and can be discovered in science, common sense and religion. By examining the history of science from the eleventh century to the present, this book shows how religious and mystical beliefs, as well as philosophical (...) speculation have had a considerable role in motivating scientists and inspiring scientific inquiry. _Physics and Metaphysics_ presupposes no technical knowledge of either philosophy or science. It is an ideal introduction to science and the important forces that have shaped its history and ideas. (shrink)

Recent work in social and cultural studies of science and technology has shown that the ‘epistemic dependence’ of laypeople on experts is not a relation of blind trust, but typically and necessarily involves critical assessment of expert testimonies. Normative epistemologists have suggested a number of criteria, mostly of contextual nature since expert knowledge means restricted cognitive access to some epistemic domain, according to which non-experts can reliably evaluate expert claims; while science studies scholars have concentrated on how (...) laypeople can come to warranted decisions about technical matters on non-technicalgrounds. Instead of addressing the problem transcendentally (how such decisions are possible) or normatively (how such decisions should be reached), this paper contrasts the recommendations available in the literature with the empirical findings of a rough case study concerning the public reaction to the H1N1 vaccine issue. Awareness of how lay people do come to such decisions may inform and refine normative philosophical investigations. (shrink)

Jennifer Trusted's new book argues that metaphysical beliefs are essential for scientific inquiry. The theories, presuppositions and beliefs that neither science nor everyday experience can justify are the realm of metaphysics, literally `beyond physics'. These basic beliefs form a framework for our activities and can be discovered in science, common sense and religion. By examining the history of science from the eleventh century to the present, this book shows how religious and mystical beliefs, as well as philosophical (...) speculation have had a considerable role in motivating scientists and inspiring scientific inquiry. _Physics and Metaphysics_ presupposes no technical knowledge of either philosophy or science. It is an ideal introduction to science and the important forces that have shaped its history and ideas. (shrink)

Expert knowledge regularly informs personal and civic-decision making. To decide which experts to trust, lay publics —including policymakers and experts from other domains—use different epistemic and non-epistemic cues. Epistemic cues such as honesty, like when experts are forthcoming about conflicts of interest, are a popular way of understanding how people evaluate and decide which experts to trust. However, many other epistemic cues, like the evidence supporting information from experts, are inaccessible to lay publics. Therefore, lay publics simultaneously use (...) second-order social cues in their environment to inform decisions to trust. These second-order social cues, or ‘social indicators of trust’, prevent lay publics from having to trust blindly. Social indicators of trust therefore inform lay publics’ epistemic vigilance, or constant low level-monitoring of testimony from experts. This special issue examines the nature, acquisition and application of social indicators of trust for scientific experts and institutions. It also raises questions about the types of trust asked of lay publics and challenges traditional normative assumptions about the relationship between science and lay publics through study of attitudes, values, and experiences. The issue descriptively re-examines the structure of institutions, their role and methods for ferrying information, as well as how social indicators operate in times of crisis. In this collection of works, we bridge history, science, philosophy of science, science and technology studies, science communication and social epistemology, to broaden the discourse on trust in experts and more accurately reflect the imperfect yet indispensable endeavour that trusting is. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that uncertainty communication by scientists (i. e., expressing reservations towards their own research) increases the public’s trust in their work. The reasons for this have not been elucidated, however. In the present study, we provide a theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. Specifically, we expected that attributed communicator bias would mediate the effect of uncertainty communication on trust. Results from a mixed-design experiment (N = 88), using modified science news articles, revealed support for (...) this hypothesis. Positive effects of uncertainty communication on trust and donation intention were both mediated by attributed communicator bias. (shrink)

He emergence of modern science is a history of disentanglement, as science detached itself first from religion and then from philosophy. Jennifer Trusted in Physics and Metaphysics argues that science -- in its haste to tear itself from its historical links -- has neglected the various roles religious and philosophical ideas have actually played and continue to play in scientific thinking. This book seeks to redress the balance by exploring how metaphysical beliefs have functioned in the history (...) of scientific inquiry and discovery. By examining the history of science from the eleventh century to the present, this book shows how religious and mystical beliefs, as well as philosophical speculation, have had a considerable role in motivating scientists and inspiring scientific inquiry. Physics and Metaphysics presupposes no technical knowledge of either philosophy or science, and as such it is an ideal introduction to science and the importantforces that have shaped its history and ideas. (shrink)

Socioscientific issues receive considerable public attention and there are concerns that people in general are not able or willing to deal with information at odds with what they believe to be true. In this study, we focused on students’ beliefs about two controversial issues: whether consumption of the artificial sweetener aspartame and use of cell phones, respectively, represent any serious health risks. Our aim was to investigate whether students’ trust in the information was related to prior beliefs, the (...) nature of the message, and students’ critical reading strategies. Results showed interactions between prior beliefs about the issues and text condition (risk vs. no risk) on trust in conclusions that indicated a confirmation bias assumption. Additionally, students trusted conclusions ascertaining that there were risks more than conclusions ascertaining that there were no risks. Finally, students’ self-reported use of critical reading strategies implied less trust in both types of conclusions. (shrink)

This paper examines the conditions of trustworthy science advice mechanisms, in which scientists have a mandated role to inform public policymaking. Based on the literature on epistemic trust and public trust in science, we argue that possession of relevant expertise, justified moral and political considerations, as well as proper institutional design are conditions for trustworthy science advice. In order to assess these conditions further, we explore the case of temporary advisory committees in Norway. (...) These committees exemplify a de facto trusted and seemingly well-functioning science advice mechanism. Still, this mechanism turns out to poorly realize some central conditions of trustworthy science advice. From this we draw three lessons. Firstly, it remains crucial to distinguish between well-placed and de facto trust. Secondly, some conditions of trustworthy science advice seem more significant than others and there are thresholds for realizing each condition. Thirdly, not only does the institutional design and organization of science advice matter more than often recognized; the trust and trustworthiness of the broader social and political context and institutional environment make a difference as well. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to show how the science of biology has been influenced by ethical, religious, social, cultural and philosophical beliefs as to the nature of life and our human place in the natural world. It follows that there are accounts of theories and investigations from those of Aristotle to research in molecular biology today. These have been selected to illustrate the theme and there is no intention to present a comprehensive history of biology. It is (...) suggested that ethical beliefs in particular have a greater influence in biology than in other sciences, such as physics and chemistry, and this is because biology includes the study of ourselves and involves us in consideration of the value and purpose of life. Attitudes to non-human life are also coloured by ethical beliefs and though some philosophers, for example Descartes, thought that only human beings were capable of thought and feeling the general view has always been that animals were sentient. Our treatment of animals and our attitudes toward them have also been conditioned by religious views as to the position of humans in relation to the natural world. (shrink)

General science literacy contributes to good public decision‐making about technology and medicine. This essay explores the kinds of science literacy currently developed by public education in the United States of America. It argues that current curricula on “science as inquiry” (formerly the “nature of science”) need to be brought up to date with the inclusion of discussion of social epistemological concepts such as trust and scientific authority, scientific disagreement versus science denialism, the (...) role of ideology and bias in scientific research, and the importance of peer review and responsiveness to criticism. (shrink)

Public trust is paramount for the well functioning of data driven healthcare activities such as digital health interventions, contact tracing or the build-up of electronic health records. As the use of personal data is the common denominator for these healthcare activities, healthcare actors have an interest to ensure privacy and anonymity of the personal data they depend on. Maintaining privacy and anonymity of personal data contribute to the trustworthiness of these healthcare activities and are associated with the (...) class='Hi'>public willingness to trust these activities with their personal data. An analysis of online news readership comments about the failed care.data programme in England revealed that parts of the public have a false understanding of anonymity in the context of privacy protection of personal data as used for healthcare management and medical research. Some of those commenting demanded complete anonymity of their data to be willing to trust the process of data collection and analysis. As this demand is impossible to fulfil and trust is built on a false understanding of anonymity, the inability to meet this demand risks undermining public trust. Since public concerns about anonymity and privacy of personal data appear to be increasing, a large-scale information campaign about the limits and possibilities of anonymity with respect to the various uses of personal health data is urgently needed to help the public to make better informed choices about providing personal data. (shrink)

Rawlsian idea of public reason refers to the boundaries on political justification of coercive laws and public policies that have wide impact on lives of citizens. The boundaries of public reason means that political justification should be based on reasons we can expect every citizen can reasonably accept independently of any comprehensive religious, philosophical or moral doctrine to which she adhere. In modern liberal democracies characterized by reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines it is unjustified for political argumentation (...) to be based on claims that many citizens can not accept. As I understand it, the point of idea of public reason is to strengthen the relationship of civic trust or civic friendship that can ensure inherent stability of just political regime. An important part of the idea of public reason is how it incorporates scientific claims in political argumentation. Rawls writes that citizens are to base their public justification on „presently accepted general beliefs and forms of reasoning found in common sense, and the methods and conclusions of science when those are not controversial.“ If the idea of public reason is the source of political stability it is necessary to answer what it means that conclusions of science are controversial in political and social context? First, scientific controversy is different from controversy of comprehensive doctrines. Science stands outside of comprehensive doctrines so conclusions of science will not be controversial because they clash with comprehensive beliefs, but they will be controversial if they rely on comprehensive beliefs. Second, if conclusions of science are controversial within scientific community, if there are some expert witness disputing its validity, then maybe value-judgments can enter to set standards for certification of the scientific claim. If potential consequences of scientific claim are bad for welfare of some group in society than standards of evidence that will certify this claim must go up. Finally, even if some scientific claim has been certified it still can be controversial as a premise in political justification. The reason can be that certification has not been transparent and many citizens do not realize that this claim is part of scientific consensus. Again, the criterion for controversy of scientific conclusions in political context is connected to the notion of trust and not to the validity of scientific claim or supportive evidence by itself. (shrink)

Philologus, founded in 1846, is one of the oldest and most respected periodicals in the field of Classics. It publishes articles on Greek and Latin literature, historiography, philosophy, history of religion, linguistics, reception, and the history of scholarship. The journal aims to contribute to our understanding of Greco-Roman culture and its lasting influence on European civilization. The journal Philologus, conceived as a forum for discussion among different methodological approaches to the study of ancient texts and their reception, publishes original scholarly (...) contributions with a strong international focus. Publications languages are: German, English, Italian, French. As of 2014 the publication of supplementary volumes will be resumed. The series Philologus. Supplemente / Philologus. Supplementary Volumes will publish monographs and edited volumes pertaining to all aspects of the study of ancient literature and its reception, with a special focus on topics concerning literary theory, philosophy and the history of scholarship from an interdisciplinary perspective. (shrink)

Margaret Atwood and David Suzuki are two of the most prominent Canadian public ‎intellectuals ‎involved in the global warming debate. They both argue that anthropogenic global ‎warming is ‎occurring, warn against its grave consequences, and urge governments and the ‎public to take ‎immediate, decisive, extensive, and profound measures to prevent it. They differ, ‎however, in the ‎reasons and evidence they provide in support of their position. While Suzuki ‎stresses the scientific ‎evidence in favour of the global warming theory (...) and the scientific ‎consensus around it, Atwood is ‎suspicious of the objectivity of science, and draws on an ‎idiosyncratic neo-Malthusian theory of ‎human development. Their implicit views ‎about the cognitive authority of science may be ‎identified with Critical Contextual Empiricism ‎and Feminist Standpoint Epistemology, respectively, ‎both of which face difficulties with ‎providing solid grounds for the position they advocate.‎ ‎. (shrink)