What Is Epistemic Public Trust in Science?

Irzık, Gürol; Kurtulmuş, Faik

doi:10.1093/bjps/axy007

Cited by 39 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Given worries about accessibility and comprehensibility, a number of proposals have been made as to how laypersons can effectively evaluate expert testifier trustworthiness (for some recent proposals, see Guerrero (2016), Irzik and Kurtulmus (2019), Brennan (2020), Grundmann (forthcoming)). There is much to be said about these debates, and I will return to some of them in Sect.…”

Section: Determining the Trustworthiness Of Scientific Expertsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trusting scientific experts in an online world

Boyd

2022

Synthese

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A perennial problem in social epistemology is the problem of expert testimony, specifically expert testimony regarding scientific issues: for example, while it is important for me to know information pertaining to anthropogenic climate change, vaccine safety, Covid-19, etc., I may lack the scientific background required to determine whether the information I come across is, in fact, true. Without being able to evaluate the science itself, then, I need to find trustworthy expert testifiers to listen to. A major project in social epistemology has thus become determining what the markers of trustworthiness are that laypersons can appeal to in order to identify and acquire information from expert testifiers. At the same time, the ways in which we acquire scientific information has changed significantly, with much of it nowadays being acquired in online environments. While much has been said about the potential pitfalls of seeking information online (e.g. the prevalence of filter bubbles, echo chambers, and the overall proliferation of "fake news"), little has been said about how the nature of seeking information online should make us think about the problem of expert testimony. Indeed, it seems to be an underlying assumption that good markers of trustworthiness apply equally well when seeking information from expert testifiers in online and offline environments alike, and that the new challenges and opportunities presented by online environments merely affects the methods by which we can acquire evidence of said trustworthiness. Here I argue that in making this assumption one risks failing to account for how unique features of the ways in which we acquire information online affect how we evaluate the trustworthiness of experts. Specifically, I argue for two main claims: first, that the nature of information-seeking online is such that the extent to which information is susceptible to manipulation is a dominant marker of trustworthiness; second, as a result, one will be more likely to seek out a particular kind of expert testifier in online environments, what I call a cooperative as opposed to preemptive expert. The result is that criteria for expert trustworthiness may look significantly different when acquiring information online as opposed to offline.

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Section: Determining the Trustworthiness Of Scientific Expertsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trusting scientific experts in an online world

Boyd

2022

Synthese

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“…Local customs in nutrition, embedded in African culture and history, she claimed, would effectively combat the “alien” disease (Goldacre, 2010 ). Or a US political leader refers to SARS-Cov-2 as “the China virus,” thereby stoking xenophobic fears that eclipse the unjustified science (Hswen et al, 2021 ). The anti-fluoridationists in the USA (mentioned above) were united as much by shared anti-government sentiments, as by any science (Martin, 1991 ; Toumey, 1996 ).…”

Section: Science Con Artistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Speaks for Science?

Allchin

2021

Sci & Educ

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Ironically, flat-Earthers, anti-vaxxers, and climate change naysayers trust in science. Unfortunately, they trust the wrong science. That conundrum lies at the heart of scientific literacy in an age of well-funded commercial and ideological interests and overwhelming digital information. The core question for the citizen-consumer is not philosophically “why trust science?” (Oreskes 2019) but sociologically “who speaks for science?” Teachers can help students learn how to navigate the treacherous territory of inevitably mediated communication and the vulnerabilities of epistemic dependence. Students need to understand the role of science communication practices (media literacy) and the roles of credibility, expertise and honesty and the deceptive strategies used by imitators of science to seem like credible voices for science.

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“…'(1) S believes that P and honestly (that is, truthfully, accurately, and wholly) communicates it to M either directly or indirectly, (2) M takes the fact that S believes and has communicated that P to be a (strong but defeasible) reason to believe that P, (3) P is the output of reliable scientific research carried out by S, and (4) M relies on S because she has good reasons to believe that P is the output of such research and that S has communicated P honestly'. (Irzik and Kurtulmus 2019: 1149-1150 In other words, trusting S as the provider of P implies that M has good reasons to believe that P is reliable, and that S is honest. The issue is thus: which first-order reasons must the public possess, in order to believe that P is the result of reliable research, and that S is honest?…”

Section: Public Trust In Science: Epistemological Political and Psychological Determinantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The social and institutional conditions promoting both the credibility and trustworthiness of scientists and scientific results are still strongly debated. In this context, the 'openingup' of science is increasingly considered as a way to positively influence public trust relationship towards science (Rutjens et al 2018;Irzik and Kurtulmus 2019;Carrier 2017). This opening-up may take the form of greater involvement of lay citizens in the process of knowledge-making and the production of expertise.…”

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confidence: 99%

Can citizen science increase trust in research? A case study of delineating Polish metropolitan areas

Bedessem

Gawrońska-Nowak

Lis

2021

JCER

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We assess the relationship between citizens’ participation in scientific research and public trust in research results within social sciences. We conduct an online citizen science quasi-experiment concerning the delineation of metropolitan areas of Poland’s two major cities. It consists of two stages. In stage one, participants in one region are exposed to citizen science and directly involved in delineating the boundaries of their local metropolitan area. In stage two, we add another region in which participants are not involved in the research process. In both regions we ask the participants to evaluate the level of their trust in the presented maps of respective metropolitan areas: based on citizen science in one region and historical data regression analysis in the other region. Our contribution to the literature lies in two areas. First, we demonstrate how citizen science can be used in urban studies to delineate boundaries of urban and metropolitan areas exhibiting strong functional connections. Second, we show that the participation of local residents in the research process increases public trust in the study results compared to non-participatory ‘traditional academic’ research. These results confirm that citizen science programs deserve to be strongly supported by European institutions as a possible means to resolving the credibility crisis of science, research and evidence-based policies.

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What Is Epistemic Public Trust in Science?

Cited by 39 publications

References 32 publications

Trusting scientific experts in an online world

Trusting scientific experts in an online world

Who Speaks for Science?

Can citizen science increase trust in research? A case study of delineating Polish metropolitan areas

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