Inconvenient Truth and Inductive Risk in Covid-19 Science

Philosophy of Medicine 3 (1):1-25 (2022)
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Abstract

To clarify the proper role of values in science, focusing on controversial expert responses to Covid-19, this article examines the status of (in)convenient hypotheses. Polarizing cases like health experts downplaying mask efficacy to save resources for healthcare workers, or scientists dismissing “accidental lab leak” hypotheses in view of potential xenophobia, plausibly involve modifying evidential standards for (in)convenient claims. Societies could accept that scientists handle (in)convenient claims just like nonscientists, and give experts less political power. Or societies could hold scientists to a higher bar, by expecting them not to modify evidential standards to avoid costs only incidentally tied to error.

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Author's Profile

Eli I. Lichtenstein
University of Edinburgh

Citations of this work

Philosophy of Medicine and Covid-19.Alex Broadbent - 2022 - Philosophy of Medicine 3 (1).

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References found in this work

Knowledge in a social world.Alvin I. Goldman - 1999 - New York: Oxford University Press.
True Enough.Catherine Z. Elgin - 2017 - Cambridge: MIT Press.
Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal.Heather Douglas - 2009 - University of Pittsburgh Press.
The scientific image.C. Van Fraassen Bas - 1980 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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