Post-Truth and Education

Abstract

Post-truth is a social condition that threatens the trust in science and people’s critical thinking. This paper analyzes some of the educational responses to post-truth, claiming the potential contributions of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Some of the responses based on traditional epistemology, characterized as epistemological vaccines , are contrasted with some of the possible responses based on a more complex and interdisciplinary knowledge of science and technology. It is argued that epistemological vaccines, despite having an enormous value in fighting against post-truth, are insufficient to transform this social condition and its implications for science and technology. It is sustained that a social epistemology and, moreover, an expert interdisciplinary approach to the knowledge of science and technology, such as the one offered by STS, is required to consolidate stronger educational strategies, formulating STS vaccines , that could be useful as a counterweight to understand and deconstruct post-truth. Given that the STS academic field has developed a good account of how scientific facts and social trust in science are constructed, it also has the capacity to show how post-truth and alternative facts are constructed, unmasking for whom it is important that we decry science. The conclusion points toward the urgency to rethink the current influence of the STS field in the educational context to relocate the STS education.

What drives the public's use of data? The mediating role of trust in science and data literacy in functional scientific reasoning concerning COVID‐19

“…Disambiguating is important because different characteristics of everyday practice call for different educational designs. The overall portrayal in current discourse on post‐truth, despite mixed findings, is of a public that lacks requisite data literacy skills and that prioritizes emotional and ideological commitment over data (as reviewed in Barzilai & Chinn, 2020; Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, 2017; Valladares, 2022).…”

“…On the one hand, recent discussions concerning the “post‐truth” era present people as disinclined to draw on scientific practices, portraying the public as being more readily swayed by partisanship, sensation, and emotion than by data (for a review, see Barzilai & Chinn, 2020; Valladares, 2022). On the other hand, research suggests that, in some cases, surface processing rather than emotional bias or social desirability may better explain why people take up inaccurate information (Bago et al, 2020; Pennycook & Rand, 2019).…”

Facilitating Middle School Students’ Reasoning About Vaccines

“…It is especially important in today's pandemic, during which science denial and the antivaccine movement have been spreading throughout Turkey and the world, to promote students' scientific literacy and their decision-making skills about socio-scientific issues. Science education plays an important role in this sense because it provides the solutions required to combat science denial and post-truth (Valladares, 2021). In today's society, individuals are expected to make decisions and make rational actions over a range of individual and social issues (Song et al, 2021).…”

Wicked problems in a post-truth political economy: a dilemma for knowledge translation

“…For example, reflecting the importance of early engagement with stakeholders, many have advocated for an educational response, in the form of embedding scientific literacy, critical thinking skills, and civic education programs in primary and secondary school curricula (Barzilai and Chinn, 2020 ; Cohen et al, 2021 ; Feinstein and Waddington, 2020 ). Some also highlight the need for innovation in education to find more effective ways of promoting those skills (Chinn et al, 2021 ; Valladares, 2022 ) and promoting greater political participation (Bauml et al, 2021 ; Weinberg, 2022 ). This can help facilitate the potential of “citizen science” approaches to generate policy-relevant recommendations, which have been shown to successfully challenge and change entrenched views on issues such as vaccination (Parrella et al, 2016 ; Wise, 2021 ).…”