Expert Trespassing Testimony and the Ethics of Science Communication

Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 49 (3):299-318 (2018)
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Abstract

Scientific expert testimony is crucial to public deliberation, but it is associated with many pitfalls. This article identifies one—namely, expert trespassing testimony—which may be characterized, crudely, as the phenomenon of experts testifying outside their domain of expertise. My agenda is to provide a more precise characterization of this phenomenon and consider its ramifications for the role of science in society. I argue that expert trespassing testimony is both epistemically problematic and morally problematic. Specifically, I will argue that scientific experts are subject to a particular obligation. Roughly, this is the obligation to qualify their assertions when speaking outside their domain of scientific expertise in certain contexts. Thus, I argue that scientists who possess expert knowledge are confronted with hard questions about when and how to testify and, therefore, that being a scientific expert comes with great responsibility. Consequently, I provide a concrete “expert guideline” according to which scientific experts, in certain contexts, face an obligation to qualify their assertions when speaking outside their domain of expertise. Furthermore, I consider a number of the conditions in which the guideline is waived or overridden. On this basis, I consider the broader aspects of the roles of scientific experts in a society with a high division of cognitive labor that calls for trust in scientific expert testimony.

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Mikkel Gerken
University of Southern Denmark

Citations of this work

Science Communication and the Problematic Impact of Descriptive Norms.Uwe Peters - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (3):713-738.
How to balance Balanced Reporting and Reliable Reporting.Mikkel Gerken - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (10):3117-3142.
Public scientific testimony in the scientific image.Mikkel Gerken - forthcoming - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A (C).

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References found in this work

Knowledge in a social world.Alvin I. Goldman - 1999 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal.Heather Douglas - 2009 - University of Pittsburgh Press.
Epistemology of disagreement: The good news.David Christensen - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (2):187-217.
Science in a democratic society.Philip Kitcher - 2011 - Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

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