Understanding and Trusting Science

Abstract

Science communication via testimony requires a certain level of trust. But in the context of ideologically-entangled scientific issues, trust is in short supply -particularly when the issues are politically "entangled". In such cases, cultural values are better predictors than scientific literacy for whether agents trust the publicly-directed claims of the scientific community. In this paper, we argue that a common way of thinking about scientific literacy -as knowledge of particular scientific facts or concepts -ought to give way to a second-order understanding of science as a process as a more important notion for the public's trust of science.

The Development and Validation of the Social Enterprise of Science Index (SESI): An Instrument to Measure Grasp of the Social-Institutional Aspects of Science

“…We also noted some important ways in which our respective measures diverge. A key difference involves our conceptual frameworks and instrument content: while Bauer et al focus on teamwork as the main social aspect of science, our instrument also addresses the existence of competition and disagreement in science, which we believe are relevant to the public's trust of consensus science (Slater et al, 2019). Our measure also goes into greater depth on a number of important social-institutional concepts and processes within science (such as education, peer-discussion/criticism, and the epistemic standing of publications); Bauer et al's instrument is more focused on cross-national collaboration and governmental funding schemes than our instrument is.…”

Open Questions in Scientific Consensus Messaging Research

“…But even if consensus is not epistemically significant per se, in certain circumstances it can serve as a useful pointer towards the truth-as evidence of evidence. This is because we can often correctly presume that in a scientific community characterized by certain institutional norms and processese.g., organized skepticism (Merton 1942), competition (Kuhn, 1962), and peer reviewwill be one in which a consensus is epistemically significant (Slater et al, 2019). And if this cannot be presumed, it may be possible for members of the lay public to ascertain it (Anderson, 2011).…”

Knowledge about the nature of science increases public acceptance of science regardless of identity factors

“…A more promising approach may thus be to focus on people’s knowledge of general science facts and of the processes and practices of science, known as the Nature of Science (NoS). In general, people who have higher NoS knowledge may be in a better position to understand the connection between scientific practices and the generation of knowledge (Nelson et al, 2019; Thanukos and Scotchmoor, 2012) or the role that the scientific community plays (Slater et al, 2019). This knowledge may allow for more robust acceptance of the scientific consensus or greater trust in scientific claims.…”