Expert reports by large multidisciplinary groups: the case of the International Panel on Climate Change

Synthese (5-6):14491-14508 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Recent years have seen a notable increase in the production of scientific expertise by large multidisciplinary groups. The issue we address is how reports may be written by such groups in spite of their size and of formidable obstacles: complexity of subject matter, uncertainty, and scientific disagreement. Our focus is on the International Panel on Climate Change, unquestionably the best-known case of such collective scientific expertise. What we show is that the organization of work within the IPCC aims to make it possible to produce documents that are indeed expert reports. To do so, we first put forward the epistemic norms that apply to expert reports in general, that is, the properties that reports should have in order to be useful and to help decision-making. Section 2 claims that these properties are: intelligibility, relevance and accuracy. Based on this analysis, section 3 points to the difficulties of having IPCC reports indeed satisfying these norms. We then show how the organization of work within the IPCC aims at and to a large extent secures intelligibility, relevance and accuracy, with the result that IPCC reports can be relied on for decision-making. Section 4 focuses on the fundamentals of IPCC’s work organization--that is, division of labour within the IPCC--while section 5 investigates three frameworks that were introduced over the course of the functioning of the IPCC: the reviewing procedure of IPCC reports, the language that IPCC authors use to express uncertainty and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Concluding remarks are offered in section 6.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 99,322

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

“Peer Review is Melting Our Glaciers”: What Led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to Go Astray?Laszlo Kosolosky - 2015 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 46 (2):351-366.
Interpreting the Probabilistic Language in IPCC Reports.Corey Dethier - 2023 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 10.
Assessing climate model projections: State of the art and philosophical reflections.Joel Katzav, Henk A. Dijkstra & A. T. J. de Laat - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 43 (4):258-276.
Ipcc.Jonathan Lynn - 2023 - In Nathanaël Wallenhorst & Christoph Wulf (eds.), Handbook of the Anthropocene. Springer. pp. 1623-1627.
Assessing climate model projections: state of the art and philosophical reflections.Joel Katzav, Henk Dijkstra & Jos de Laat - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 43 (4):258-276.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-10-18

Downloads
69 (#254,864)

6 months
19 (#137,509)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Isabelle Drouet
Université Paris-Sorbonne
Anouk Barberousse
Sorbonne Université
Julie Jebeile
University of Bern
1 more

Citations of this work

Expert judgment in climate science: How it is used and how it can be justified.Mason Majszak & Julie Jebeile - 2023 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 100 (C):32-38.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science.Nancy Cartwright - 1999 - New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Experts: Which ones should you trust?Alvin I. Goldman - 2001 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (1):85-110.

View all 29 references / Add more references