Using the controversy over the MMR vaccine, I consider the reasons why non-experts should defer to experts, and I sketch a model for understanding cases where they fail to defer. I first suggest that an intuitively plausible model of the expert/non-expert relationship is complicated by shifting epistemic standards. One possible moderate response to this challenge, based on a more complex notion of non-experts' relationship with experts, seems unappealing as an account of the MMR controversy. A more radical suggestion (...) is that non-experts might have a political reason to defer to experts, when not doing so will involve ‘epistemological free-riding’. I investigate the implications. (shrink)

‘‘Anecdotal evidence’’ has become a central point of contention in two recent controversies over science and technology in referring to our cases as controversies over science and technology.) in the United Kingdom and a contact point between individuals, expert institutions, and policy decisions. We argue that the term is central to the management of the boundary between experts and nonexperts, with consequences for ideas of public engagement and participation. This article reports on two separate pieces of qualitative (...) social research into recent UK public risk controversies with the aim of unfolding the processes by which anecdotal evidence comes to be defined. We do not define anecdotal evidence as an epistemic category that exists prior to the public controversies themselves; rather, we aim to show how the term is constructed and contested by expert and nonexpert actors. We find that anecdotal evidence comes to be accepted by the main actors as an epistemic category, yet that it is multidimensional, open to interpretation as subjective reports, as an indicator of expert ignorance, as a source of novel hypotheses and as a set of political claims for recognition and inclusion. We conclude that the flexibility of anecdotal evidence at the boundary between science and its publics can offer opportunities for participation and engagement, as well as exclusion and alienation. (shrink)

This paper presents sample results from a poll conducted among experts regarding the roots of the controversy between the evolutionary account of human origin and religious convictions about creation. It appears that the position one takes in this controversy is influenced much more by one’s opinions than professional background. The controversy is usually only seemingly ‘solved’ at the level of a priori assumptions, erroneous definitions of ‘evolutionism’ and ‘creationism’, semantic viewpoints, epistemological positions and pragmatic choices. The core issues in the (...) controversy are widely neglected and do not play a significant role in deciding one’s views on the matter. -------------- Received: 28/08/2020. Reviewed: 30/09/2020. Accepted: 09/11/2020. (shrink)

Las controversias socio-científicas sobre las vacunas que han surgido en los últimos años en Chile muestran nuevas tensiones entre expertos y ciudadanía. Gran parte de los estudios que abordan estas problemáticas se centran en analizar a quienes rechazan la vacunación, pero no a otros actores relevantes de las controversias como son los expertos. A partir de un enfoque cualitativo, en este artículo se analizan los discursos, estrategias y prácticas comunicativas de los expertos en salud, buscando comprender su punto de vista (...) respecto a quienes rechazan la vacunación. La investigación muestra que, si bien existe unanimidad sobre la relevancia de las vacunas como medida preventiva, hay diversidad entre las posiciones de los expertos frente a quienes son críticos con la vacunación. Esto se refleja en distintos modelos de comunicación pública de la ciencia y la tecnología, con una clara vigencia del modelo del déficit cognitivo y su perspectiva alfabetizador. (shrink)

This article discusses the conditions under which the use of expert knowledge may provide an adequate response to public concerns about high-tech, late modern risks. Scientific risk estimation has more than once led to expert controversies. When these controversies occur, the public at large – as a media audience – faces a paradoxical situation: on the one hand it must rely on the expertise of scientists as represented in the mass media, but on the other it (...) is confused by competing expert claims in the absence of any clear-cut standard to judge these claims. The question then arises, what expertise can the public trust? I argue that expert controversies cannot be settled by appealing to neutral, impartial expertise, because each use of expert knowledge in applied contexts is inextricably bound up with normative and evaluative assumptions. This value-laden nature of expert contributions, however, does not necessarily force us to adopt a relativist conception of expert knowledge. Nor does it imply active involvement of ordinary citizens in scientific risk estimation – as some authors seem to suggest. The value-laden, or partisan, nature of expert statements rather requires an unbiased process of expert dispute in which experts and counter-experts can participate. Moreover, instead of being a reason for discrediting expert contributions, experts'' commitment may enhance public trustworthiness because it enlarges the scope of perspectives taken into account, to include public concerns. Experts who share the same worries as (some of) the public could be expected to voice these worries at the level of expert dispute. Thus, a broadly shaped expert dispute, that is accessible to both proponents and opponents, is a prerequisite for public trust. (shrink)

Ethics commissions provide expert advice to governments on what policies to implement regarding pressing ethical issues, most often in bioethics. These commissions distinguish themselves by having members from the professions we are most likely to think of as moral experts, if we believe that these exist. The relationship between moral experts and the composition of ethics commissions is worthy of further exploration, especially because of the highly controversial nature of whether moral expertise exists and, if so, how, and whether, (...) we can identify moral experts. Moreover, it has been argued that the emergence of ethics commissions and how they have been composed have led to a “thinner” debate. In the first part of the article, the problem regarding checks for identifying moral experts is discussed. I argue that one way to handle this difficulty is through the application of Rawls’ concept of comprehensive doctrines. These doctrines have inherent standards that function similarly to independent checks, making it possible to identify moral experts from within such different doctrines. Using this approach makes it manageable to appoint moral experts to ethics commissions. In the second part, I consider the implications of seeing moral expertise through the prism of comprehensive doctrines for the composition of ethics commissions. One natural conclusion is that we should select moral experts representing different reasonable comprehensive doctrines to serve as members of ethics commissions. I consider six challenges to my proposal and demonstrate why these lack merit, and I point out some practical concerns that need further inquiry. (shrink)

A consensus in a scientific community is often used as a resource for making informed public-policy decisions and deciding between rival expert testimonies in legal trials. This paper contains a social-epistemic analysis of the high-profile Bendectin drug controversy, which was decided in the courtroom inter alia by deference to a scientific consensus about the safety of Bendectin. Drawing on my previously developed account of knowledge-based consensus, I argue that the consensus in this case was not knowledge based, hence courts’ (...) deference to it was not epistemically justified. I draw sceptical lessons from this analysis regarding the value of scientific consensus as a desirable and reliable means of resolving scientific controversies in public life. (shrink)

There is great skepticism about the admittance of expert normative ethics testimony into evidence. However, a practical analysis of the way ethics testimony has been used in courts of law reveals that the skeptical position is itself based on assumptions that are controversial. We argue for an alternative way to understand such expert testimony. This alternative understanding is based on the practice of clinical ethics.

The controversies over genetically modified crops in India involve what Gieryn refers to as ‘boundary work’ in the ongoing competition for credibility and trustworthiness among claimsmakers with opposing points of view. Discourse about GM crops involves extensive drawing of boundaries by actors including policymakers, technocrats, NGOs, scientists, industrialists, and farmers. The issues raised range from governmental processes to moral and ethical implications, from environmental consequences to integration into the global economy. Those involved in these discussions frequently invoke the idealized (...) notions of farmers and farming in order to situate themselves within the boundary of a particular social category which may lend credibility to their claims. While Gieryn has focused primarily on scientists’ attempts to construct a boundary between science and non-science in order to establish themselves as experts, strengthen the credibility of their claims and avoid political interference in their intellectual activities, this article focuses on a different way in which knowledgeable and influential actors lay claim to trustworthiness by drawing a different kind of social boundary around themselves. This article will especially focus on the ways in which the category of farmers is used in the GM crop controversies by actors who are in a position to influence public policies regarding GM crops, especially in their efforts to justify their policy prescriptions. The thesis here is that GM crop controversies in India reflect elite actors’ attempts to compete for a shared social identity with farmers, thus constructing a context for the particular public policy prescriptions they support. The thesis is supported by a lexical item frequency analysis of discussion related to genetically modified cotton in India which demonstrates that boundary work using social identity of farmers plays a significant role in shaping the discourse surrounding the adoption and governance of GM crops. (shrink)

This volume comprises various viewpoints representing a Catholic perspective on contemporary practices in medicine and biomedical research. The Roman Catholic Church has had a significant impact upon the formulation and application of moral values and principles to a wide range of controversial issues in bioethics. Catholic leaders, theologians, and bioethicists have elucidated and marshaled arguments to support the Church’s definitive positions on several bioethical issues, such as abortion, euthanasia, and reproductive cloning. Not all bioethical issues, however, have been definitively addressed (...) by Catholic authorities, and some Church teachings allow for differing applications in diverse circumstances. Moreover, as new biomedical technologies emerge, Church authorities rely on experts in science, medicine, philosophy, theology, law, and other disciplines to advise them. Such experts continue to debate issues related to reproduction, genetics, end-of-life care, and health care policy. This volume will be a valuable resource for scholars in bioethics or Catholic studies, who will benefit from the nuanced arguments offered based on the latest research. This volume is also instructive for students entering the field to become aware of the founding philosophical and theological principles informing the Catholic bioethical worldview. (shrink)

Controversial view agnosticism is the thesis that we are rationally obligated to withhold judgment about a large portion of our beliefs in controversial subject areas, such as philosophy, religion, morality and politics. Given that one’s social identity is in no small part a function of one’s positive commitments in controversial areas, CVA has unsurprisingly been regarded as objectionably ‘spineless.’ That said, CVA seems like an unavoidable consequence of a prominent view in the epistemology of disagreement—conformism—according to which the rational response (...) to discovering that someone you identify as an epistemic peer or expert about p disagrees with you vis-à-vis p is to withhold judgment. This paper proposes a novel way to maintain the core conciliatory insight without devolving into an agnosticism that is objectionably spineless. The approach offered takes as a starting point the observation that–for reasons that will be made clear—the contemporary debate has bypassed the issue of the reasonableness of maintaining, rather than giving up, representational states weaker than belief in controversial areas. The new position developed and defended here explores this overlooked space; what results is a kind of controversial view. (shrink)

This study investigates how uncertainty works in science policy debates by considering an unusual case: one in which uncertainty-based arguments for delay come from the scientific community, rather than industry actors. The case I present is the central use of value-added modeling in the evaluation of individual teachers, a controversial trend in education reform. In order to understand how policy actors might counter inconvenient statements of uncertainty from experts, I analyze speeches from Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a committed and influential (...) advocate of VAM. I identify a three-part rhetorical tactic, the “Overcaution Allegation,” and describe its persuasive potential to legitimize policies that elicit caution from the scientific community because they are built on uncertain science. (shrink)

Tamara Browne argues that many of the controversies that emerge in the process of revising DSMs could be solved by the creation of an Ethics Review Panel, similar to that of a research ethics committee. Members of such a panel would, in Browne's words, "help inform psychiatric classification". Browne's proposal is important on a number of levels, the most significant one being that it affirms the status of ethics as equal to that of science. An Ethics Review Panel would (...) do more than merely make the processes of scientific and ethical judgments parallel: if Browne's suggestions were followed, it would raise ethical considerations to that of second-order status to scientific judgments in the... (shrink)

Andreas Christiansen,Karin Jonch-Clausen,Klemens Kappel | : Many instances of new and emerging science and technology are controversial. Although a number of people, including scientific experts, welcome these developments, a considerable skepticism exists among members of the public. The use of genetically modified organisms is a case in point. In science policy and in science communication, it is widely assumed that such controversial science and technology require public participation in the policy-making process. We examine this view, which we call the Public (...) Participation Paradigm, using the case of GMOs as an example. We suggest that a prominent reason behind the call for public participation is the belief that such participation is required for democratic legitimacy. We then show that the most prominent accounts of democratic legitimacy do not, in fact, entail that public participation is required in cases of controversial science in general, or in the case of GMOs in particular. | : Beaucoup d’avancées scientifiques et de technologies émergentes sont controversées. Bien qu’un certain nombre de personnes, incluant des experts scientifiques, sont favorables à ces développements, la population demeure largement sceptique. Le recours aux organismes génétiquement modifiés illustre une telle situation. Dans les politiques et communications scientifiques, il est largement tenu pour acquis que de telles controverses scientifiques et technologiques requièrent la participation publique dans le processus de prise de décision politique. Nous examinons ce point de vue, que nous appelons le paradigme de la participation publique [Public Participation Paradigm], en nous servant du cas des OGM. Nous suggérons qu’une raison centrale en faveur de l’appel à la participation publique se situe dans la croyance qu’une telle participation est requise par la légitimité démocratique. Nous montrons ensuite que la plupart des principales conceptions de la légitimité démocratique n’impliquent pas, en fait, que la participation publique puisse être requise pour les controverses scientifiques en général, et pour les OGM en particulier. (shrink)

In their insatiable thirst for funding, contemporary universities eagerly cast themselves as important agents of economic well-being. While the particular contexts and forms for this agency may be novel, such a role is not. Historians have long identified the significance of academic institutions to economic development at a number of levels. At the national level, the importance of the Technische Hochschulen and the Land Grant colleges to German and American leadership in the Second Industrial Revolution is well known while the (...) significance of its system of higher education to a putative British industrial decline is more controversial. At the sub-national level, taking the example of Ontario, Canada, McKillop observes that “an adjustment of universities to the conditions and requirements of industrial life was an essential ingredient in economic competition and development,” with no university “untouched by the province’s industrial revolution and the secular gospel of research.” At the municipal level, in their study of three US cities, Kargon and Knowles have seen local institutions of higher education “reacting quickly and creatively to unpredictable demands for expertise.” It is this function of universities, or rather of their professoriates, as sources of local expertise which forms the focus of this paper. (shrink)

For decades, cigarette companies helped to promote the impression that there was no scientific consensus concerning the safety of their product. The appearance of controversy, however, was misleading, designed to confuse the public and to protect industry interests. Created scientific controversies emerge when expert communities are in broad agreement but the public perception is one of profound scientific uncertainty and doubt. In the first book-length analysis of the concept of a created scientific controversy, David Harker explores issues including (...) climate change, Creation science, the anti-vaccine movement and genetically modified crops. Drawing on work in cognitive psychology, social epistemology, critical thinking and philosophy of science, he shows readers how to better understand, evaluate, and respond to the appearance of scientific controversy. His book will be a valuable resource for students of philosophy of science, environmental and health sciences, and social and natural sciences. (shrink)

In most domains of human life, we are willing to accept that there are experts with greater knowledge and competencies that distinguish them from non-experts or laypeople. Despite this fact, the very recognition of expertise curiously becomes more controversial in the case of “moral experts”. Do moral experts exist? And, if they indeed do, are there ethical reasons for us to follow their advice? Likewise, can emerging technological developments broaden our very concept of moral expertise? In this article, we begin (...) by arguing that the objections that have tried to deny the existence (and convenience) of moral expertise are unsatisfactory. After that, we show that people have ethical reasons to ask for a piece of moral advice in daily life situations. Then, we argue that some Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems can play an increasing role in human morality by becoming moral experts. Some AI-based moral assistants can qualify as artificial moral experts and we would have good ethical reasons to use them. (shrink)

Over recent years, science and technology have been reassessed increasingly in ethical terms. Particularly for life science governance, ethics has become the dominant discourse. In the course of this ‘‘ethical turn’’ national ethics councils were set up throughout Europe and in the United States to advice politics in ethically controversial issues such as stem cell research and genetic testing. Ethics experts have become subject to traditional warnings against expertocracy: they are suspected to unduly influence political decision-making. However, any reliable ethics (...) expertise has to reflect societal disagreements in moral issues. Therefore, expert dissent is a normal feature of legitimate ethics expertise. Based on theoretical considerations we argue that in principle, expert dissent does not cause problems for political legitimacy; rather, it enhances the salience of politics: obviously decisions on ethical issues cannot be taken on the basis of expert knowledge alone. We therefore conclude that expert dissent, not consent, supports politics. Focussing on Germany and Austria, we show how politics deal with expert dissent in practice. While in Germany politics acknowledge dissent and use it to foster a fundamental political debate, Austrian politics attribute authoritative power to ethics expertise and try to construct an overall consensus. This illustrates how the drawing of boundaries between politic and expertise differs. (shrink)

Cet article analyse les principales caractéristiques d’un réseau d’organisations civiles mobilisées autour de la biodiversité. Il revient sur le discours produit par ces ONG autour de la thématique de la biodiversité, sur sa structuration en réseau, sur ses activités particulières de production et de diffusion d’informations, ainsi que sur son positionnement hybride entre expertise et militantisme.This article analyses the main characteristics of a network of civil society organisations involved in biodiversity advocacy. It investigates the discourse on biodiversity produced by these (...) NGOs, the formation of a structured network, its specific activities in the production and dissemination of information and its hybrid position combining expertise and activism. (shrink)

Preface 9 PART I: RELIGIOUS, SCIENTIFIC, AND PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND Introduction to Part I 19 1. The Bible 27 2. Natural Theology 33 William Paley 3. On the Origin of Species 38 Charles Darwin 4. Objections to Mr. Darwin’s Theory of the Origin of Species 65 Adam Sedgwick 5. The Origin of Species 73 Thomas H. Huxley 6. What Is Darwinism? 82 Charles Hodge 7. Darwinism as a Metaphysical Research Program 105 Karl Popper 8. Karl Popper’s Philosophy of Biology 116 Michael (...) Ruse 9. Human Nature: One Evolutionist’s View 136 Francisco Ayala 10. Universal Darwinism 158 Richard Dawkins PART II: CREATION SCIENCE AND THE McLEAN CASE Introduction to Part II 187 11. The Creationists 192 Ronald L. Numbers 12. Creation, Evolution, and the Historical Evidence 231 Duane T. Gish 13. Witness Testimony Sheet: McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education 253 Michael Ruse 14. United States District Court Opinion: McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education 279 Judge William R. Overton 15. The Demise of the Demarcation Problem 312 Larry Laudan 16. Science at the BarùCauses for Concern 331 Larry Laudan 17. Pro Judice 337 Michael Ruse 18. More on Creationism 345 Larry Laudan 19. Commentary: Philosophers at the BarùSome Reasons for Restraint 350 Barry R. Gross PART III: INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREATIONISM AND THE KITZMILLER CASE Introduction to Part III 369 20. But Isn’t It Creationism? The Beginnings of "Intelligent Design" in the Midst of the Arkansas and Louisiana Litigation 377 Nick Matzke 21. What Is Darwinism? 414 Phillip E. Johnson 22. Is It Science Yet? Intelligent Design, Creationism, and the Constitution 426 Matthew Brauer, Barbara Forrest, and Steven G. Gey 23. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Expert Witness Testimony 434 Michael Behe 24. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Expert Report 456 Robert T. Pennock 25. A Step toward the Legalization of Science Studies 485 Steve Fuller 26. What Is Wrong with Intelligent Design? 495 Elliott Sober 27. United States District Court Memorandum Opinion: Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. 506 Judge John E. Jones II 28. Can’t Philosophers Tell the Difference between Science and Religion? Demarcation Revisited 536 Robert T. Pennock. (shrink)

The Delegation for Medical Ethics within the Swedish Society of Medicine has taken the initiative to create national ethical guidelines on cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The reasons behind this initiative were indications of differences in the way decisions about cardiopulmonary resuscitation were made and documented and requests expressed by health-care professionals for new national ethical guidelines. During the process of creating the guidelines, a number of workshops were held with representatives from the delegation and clinical experts from various branches of medicine. Several (...) versions of the working document were sent to consultation bodies with requests for comments. We therefore believe that the final guidelines are well supported by the medical profession in Sweden. The purpose of this article is to present ethical issues on which it was difficult to reach consensus due to divergent opinions expressed by the people and organisations involved. The arguments for and against a particular point of... (shrink)

I shall argue that where a coercive public health policy is backed by a clear medical consensus, appropriately reconsidered in the light of claims of doubters, there is sometimes a moral obligation on the part of the public to defer to the experts. The argument will be geared to the continuing controversy in the UK over the safety of the measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine. vaccine.

When evaluating an innovative intervention in a randomised controlled trial , choosing an appropriate control intervention is necessary for a clinically meaningful result. An RCT reported in 2000 addressed the relative merits of two tidal volume ventilatory strategies, 6 ml/kg and 12 ml/kg , in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Critics claim that the 12 ml/kg volume did not represent the clinical practice standard at that time, and that lower tidal volumes had been used in some patients prior to (...) randomisation. The trialists responded that current practice involved the use of a broad range of tidal volumes, including 12 ml/kg. Appropriate control interventions for RCTs can be ensured by: a systematic review of the relevant literature; a formal survey of expert clinicians; and publication of the proposed research protocol to solicit critical appraisal. A global survey of experts during the RCT’s design stage would have been of probative value in determining the appropriate control tidal volume. Hypothetical, but plausible, results of such a survey are presented and examined to demonstrate the value of this method. (shrink)

Between 1909 and 1941, the Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) was actively involved in crafting and lobbying for policy solutions to the pervasive problem of predatory lending. Using a rich assortment of archival records, I build upon political learning theory by demonstrating how institutional conditions and political pressures – in addition to new knowledge gained through scientific study and practical experience – all contributed to the emergence and development of RSF experts’ policy ideas over the course of this 30-year period. In (...) light of these findings, I suggest that policy ideas and political interests are mutually constitutive, and that the notion that ideas must be shown to operate independent of interests in order to “prove” that they matter in policymaking is misguided. Furthermore, I discuss the implications of the remarkable success of RSF’s policy proposals for current understandings of institutional change. In particular, I argue that the passage of RSF’s controversial Uniform Small Loan Law in 34 states suggests that political actors’ collective agency can produce significant policy reforms in a context of normal policymaking without the intervention of major destabilizing events. (shrink)

Well-functioning modern democracies depend largely on expert knowledge and expert arrangements, but this expertise reliance also causes severe problems for their legitimacy. Somewhat surprisingly, moral and political philosophers have come to play an increasing role as experts in contemporary policymaking. The paper discusses different epistemic and democratic worries raised by the presence of philosopher experts in contemporary governance, relying on a broad review of existing studies, and suggests measures to alleviate them. It is argued that biases philosophers are (...) vulnerable to may contribute to reducing the quality of their advice, and that the characteristics of philosophers’ expertise, and controversies around what their competences amount to, make it hard to distinguish proper from less proper philosopher experts. Reliance on philosopher experts may also intensify democratic worries not least due to the depoliticization pressures that the introduction of ethics expertise tends to give rise to. Still, philosophers have competences and orientations that policy discussions and democratic deliberations are likely to profit from. Worries about philosopher experts may moreover be mitigated by means of a proper design of expert arrangements. Confronted with the genuine epistemic risks and democratic challenges of contemporary governance any quick fix is obviously unavailable, but when institutionalized in the right way philosophers’ involvement in present-day policymaking bears significant promise. (shrink)

This article examines the way in which public controversies affect regulatory science. It describes the controversy that unfolded in Europe around the use of the ninety-day rat-feeding tests for the risk assessment of genetically modified plants. This type of test had been criticized for almost two decades by toxicologists, nongovernmental organizations, and industry alike for its inability to capture the specific health effects of GM plants. But GM risk assessment experts showed great reluctance to move toward a more systematic (...) use of other tests, such as chronic two-year studies or toxicogenomic techniques, and made sure that official guidance continues to recommend the use of the ninety-day rat-feeding study. The article shows that these tactics of standardization are a defining feature of regulatory science, and a resource for toxicity experts to defend their authority and credibility against competing expertises that arise during controversies. (shrink)

The production of genetically modified crops is growing around the world, and with it possible opportunities to combat food insecurity and hunger, as well as solutions to current problems facing conventional agriculture. In this regard the use of GMOs in food and agricultural applications has increased greatly over the past decade. However, the development of GM crops has been a matter of considerable interest and worldwide public controversy. This, in addition to skepticism, has stifled the use of this practice on (...) a large scale in many areas, including Iran. It stands to reason that a greater understanding of this practice could be formed after a review of the existing expert opinions surrounding GM crops. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the predictors that influence agricultural experts’ attitudes toward the development of and policies related to GM crops. Using a descriptive correlational research method, questionnaire data was collected from 65 experts from the Agricultural Organization in the Gotvand district in Southwest Iran. Results indicated that agricultural experts were aware of the environmental benefits and possible risks associated with GM crops. The majority of participants agreed that GM crops could improve food security and accelerate rural development, and were proponents of labeling practices for GM crops. Finally, there was a positive correlation between the perception of benefits and attitudes towards GM crops. (shrink)

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the considerable challenge of sourcing expertise and determining which experts to trust. Dissonant information fostered controversy in public discourse and encouraged an appeal to a wide range of social indicators of trustworthiness in order to decide whom to trust. We analyze public discourse on expertise by examining how social indicators inform the reputation of Dr. Didier Raoult, the French microbiologist who rose to international prominence as an early advocate for using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. To (...) comprehend how these indicators came to inform his reputation, we outline Dr. Raoult's rise to fame based on discourse about hydroxychloroquine. We then discuss why we trust in experts like scientist-practitioners. This is followed by an examination of how social indicators of trust like status, epistemic authority, influence and values have informed Dr. Raoult's reputation. We conclude with recommendations for how to improve the selection and evaluation social indicators of trust and reputations. Our aim here, instead of making a claim about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine or Dr. Raoult's reputation per se, is to outline through this case study how social indicators of trust inform reputation and the challenge they present to evaluating expertise. (shrink)

Survey data are presented on opinions about agricultural biotechnology and its applications held by agricultural science faculty at highly ranked programs in the United States with and without personal involvement in biotechnology-oriented research. Respondents believed biotech holds much promise, but policy positions vary. These results underscore the relationship between opinion and stakeholder interests in this research, even among scientific experts. Media accounts are often seen as causes, rather than artifacts, of the existence of public controversy; European and now U.S. opposition (...) to food biotechnology is often explained away in terms of such a relationship. The authors argue that where even experts are divided, public opposition cannot reasonably be attributed to poor public understanding or sensationalistic media accounts. Ethical implications for communicating science are explored. (shrink)

Socrates’ expert-analogies is frequent both in Plato’s dialogues and in the Socratic writings of Xenophon, and is also ascribed to Socrates by Aristotle and Aeschines. Socrates makes an analogy from a non-controversial expert (or an expertise) like the cobbler or ship-captain, to another (often controversial) expert (or expertise) like the statesman. This paper defends an interpretation of the expert-analogy as valid deductions. It infers from one type of expert (such as the ship-captain) to another type (...) of expert (such as the statesman), and the attribute inferred (for instance ‘should not be selected by lot’) belongs to these types of experts because they are experts. The general logical form, which makes no mention of the expert and which is valid in virtue of its form, infers from one or more species to another species of the same genus, and the attribute inferred is presupposed to belong as such to the genus and only accidentally to the species. (shrink)

The 1918 discovery of oil in the bed of the Red River, which forms the border between Texas and Oklahoma, led to a U.S. Supreme Court case that involved the extensive use of expert witnesses in fields such as geology, geography, and ecology. What began as a dispute between the two states soon became a multisided controversy involving those states, the federal government, Native Americans, and individual placer‐mining claimants. After the federal attorneys introduced scientific experts into the dispute, including (...) the plant ecologist Henry Chandler Cowles and the geographer Isaiah Bowman, fresh from negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference, Texas attorneys fielded their own team of opposing experts. Charged with the task of determining the location of the border, defined as the south bank of the river at the time of the 1819 treaty with Spain, the scientific experts presented the court with volumes of evidence and elaborate arguments, much of it contradictory and involving creative interpretations of existing theories. The case exhibited all the now‐familiar features of a trial using expert witnesses, for which it represents an early, overlooked, and particularly complex example. (shrink)

Philosophers defend, and often believe, controversial philosophical claims. Since they aren’t clueless, they are usually aware that their views are controversial—on some occasions, the views are definitely in the minority amongst the relevant specialist-experts. In addition, most philosophers are aware that they are not God’s gift to philosophy, since they admit their ability to track truth in philosophy is not extraordinary compared to that of other philosophers. In this paper I argue that in many real-life cases, such beliefs in controversial (...) claims are irrational. This means that most philosophers have irrational philosophical beliefs. (shrink)

Novices face a problem when it comes to forming true beliefs about controversial issues that they cannot assess themselves: Who are the trustworthy experts? Elizabeth Anderson offers a set of criteria intended to allow novices to form reliable assessments of expert trustworthiness. All they need to assess experts is a high-school education and access to the internet. In this paper, I argue that novices face a much harder time using her criteria effectively than we would expect or hope. This (...) problem is amplified when novices hold the wrong opinions. Such novices need her criteria the most and are the least likely to use them correctly. Such novices lack knowledge necessary for using the criteria accurately, and are likely to resist correction of their wrong opinions due to cognitive biases. After providing reasons to be skeptical of the effectiveness of her criteria, I propose some supplemental criteria to increase their effectiveness: metacognitive reliability conditions aimed at getting novices to assess themselves in the way that they assess experts. Although these additional criteria show promise, we should be reserved in our optimism. (shrink)

The problem of demarcation continues to attract attention, in part because solutions are perceived to have enormous social significance. The civic motivation, however, I argue is in tension with the heterogeneity of the sciences. Philosophers of science would be better employed reflecting on the features, causes, and consequences, of created, scientific controversies. These arise when relevant experts are in broad agreement about what conclusions can sensibly be drawn from available evidence, but the public perceives an expert community deeply (...) divided and conclusions that are plagued by profound and systemic uncertainty. In the second part of the paper I explore this concept further. (shrink)

Human/animal relations are potentially controversial and biotechnologically produced animals and animal-like creatures – bio-objects such as transgenics, clones, cybrids and other hybrids – have often created lively political debate since they challenge established social and moral norms. Ethical issues regarding the human/animal relations in biotechnological developments have at times been widely debated in many European countries and beyond. However, the general trend is a move away from parliamentary and public debate towards institutionalized ethics and technified expert panels. We explore (...) by using the conceptual lens of bio-objectification what effects such a move can be said to have. (shrink)

In response to political pressures arising from controversial science policy decisions, the United Kingdom (UK) government conducted a review of its biotechnology governance framework in 1999, identifying best practices of open government and creating strategic bodies to adopt them. Drawing from empirical data on the context and nature of the open government framework, this paper argues that the framework may be interpreted as elasticizing objectivity. Value-neutral scientific objectivity is essentially 'stretched' into a pluralist objectivity that purports to represent a spectrum (...) of interests without privileging any, allowing the policy culture to retain its legitimating objectivity and authority. Governance implications of this analysis are discussed. (shrink)

Some brain injured patients are left in a permanent vegetative state, i.e., they have irreversibly lost their capacity for consciousness but retained some autonomic physiological functions, such as breathing unaided. Having discussed the controversial nature of the permanent vegetative state as a diagnostic category, we turn to the question of the patients’ ontological status. Are the permanently vegetative alive, dead, or in some other state? We present empirical data from interviews with relatives of patients, and with experts, to support the (...) view that the ontological state of permanently vegetative patients is unclear: such patients are neither straightforwardly alive nor simply dead. Having defended this view from counter-arguments we turn to the practical question as to how these patients ought to be treated. Some relatives and experts believe it is right for patients to be shifted from their currently unclear ontological state to that of being straightforwardly dead, but many are concerned or even horrified by the only legally sanctioned method guaranteed to achieve this, namely withdrawal of clinically assisted nutrition and hydration. A way of addressing this distress would be to allow active euthanasia for these patients. This is highly controversial; but we argue that standard objections to allowing active euthanasia for this particular class of permanently vegetative patients are weakened by these patients’ distinctive ontological status. (shrink)

In one of his papers, Moti Mizrahi argues that arguments from an expert opinion are weak arguments. His thesis may seem controversial due to the consensus on this topic in the field of informal logic. I argue that its controversy is framework-dependent, and if translated into a different framework, it appears to be a correct, however trivial, claim. I will use a framework based on Douglas Walton’s argumentation scheme theory and his conception of examination dialogue to demonstrate that it (...) is so. It appears that Mizrahi’s idiosyncratic framework provides an excessively restrictive conception of an argument from expert opinion than Walton’s scheme does. There is no quarrel between both frameworks, as they yield analogous, almost identical, outcomes of argument evaluation. The actual and crucial disagreement is on the topic of argument classification. Mizrahi’s conception of arguments from an expert opinion imposes exact conditions that such argument must fulfil: an expert’s opinion o truth-value must be unknown; o must be unsupported by any evidence; an expert’s peers neither accept o nor reject it. These exclude, by definition, every possible strong, in Walton’s terms, variant of such an argument. Therefore, if rephrased with the notions of the examination dialogue framework, Mizrahi’s thesis sounds as follows: weak arguments from expert opinion are weak arguments. (shrink)

Brain death or determination of death based on the neurological criterion has been an enduring source of controversy in academic and clinical circles. The controversy chiefly concerns how death is defined, and it also bears on the justification of the proposed criteria for death determination and their interpretation. Part of the controversy on brain death and death determination stems from disputed crucial medical facts, but in this paper I formulate another hypothesis about the nature of ongoing controversies. At stake (...) is a misunderstood relationship between, on the one hand, the nature of our lay views about death and, on the other hand, the nature of scientific insights into death and its determination. The misunderstanding of this relationship has partly anchored the controversy and continues to fuel it. Based on a perspective inspired by pragmatism, which stresses the positive contribution of science to ethical and policy debates but also challenges different forms of scientism in science and philosophy found in foundationalist interpretations, I scrutinize three different stances regarding the relationship between lay and scientific perspectives about the definition of death: foundational lay views, foundational expert views, and co-evolving views. I argue that only the latter is sustainable given recent challenges to foundationalist interpretations. (shrink)

Most literature about vaccine hesitancy has been focused on parental attitudes. Less attention has been devoted to both scientists and experts who raise criticism about immunization policies and intervene in the public debate. This consideration aims to balance the current emphasis in the literature on parents’ attitudes about vaccination, offering a complementary angle to reframe and widen the controversy. Focusing on scientists and experts, an unattended complex picture of multiple attitudes towards vaccines and vaccinations has been discovered through a qualitative (...) content analysis of texts related to the harsh public debate, held between March 2017 and November 2018, triggered by the legislative proposal of making ten vaccinations mandatory for children. Unlike oversemplications that misleading dichotomies reproduce, the analysis reveals nine different positions along the continuum of immunisation attitudes, ranging from radical acceptance of vaccinations to radical rejection, which constitute a fuzzy set. Consequently, a twofold reality emerges: on the surface, the conflict seems between pro-vaxxers versus hesitant, pro-choice and anti-vaxxers; beneath it is amid standardized versus a varieties of contextual and personalised approaches to health. (shrink)

Einstein Versus Bohr is unlike other books on science written by experts for non-experts, because it presents the history of science in terms of problems, conflicts, contradictions, and arguments. Science normally "keeps a tidy workshop." Professor Sachs breaks with convention by taking us into the theoretical workshop, giving us a problem-oriented account of modern physics, an account that concentrates on underlying concepts and debate. The book contains mathematical explanations, but it is so-designed that the whole argument can be followed with (...) the math omitted. Professor Sachs' story begins with classical and nineteenth century physics, describes the early discoveries in particle theory, and introduces the "old" quantum theory, which evolved into the quantum mechanics of the Copenhagen School. Such important ideas as the Einstein Photon Box experiment and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox, and Schrodinger's Cat Paradox are clearly expounded, followed by a completely fresh explanation of relativity in conceptual terms, showing how apparent paradoxes can be removed by Einstein's own interpretation, especially that of his later years. Professor Sachs gives a detailed comparison of the fundamentals of the quantum and relativity theories, suggesting how the contradictions might be resolved. In an epilogue, he makes suggestions, with reference to religious notions, Taoism, and Buber's theory of I-Thou, for generalizing Einstein's approach beyond physics. (shrink)

ArgumentDuring the second quarter of the nineteenth century, an argument raged about the identity of a small freshwater fish: was the parr a distinct species, or merely the young of the salmon? This “Parr Controversy” concerned both fishermen and ichthyologists. A central protagonist in the controversy was a man of ambiguous social and scientific status: a gamekeeper from Scotland named John Shaw. This paper examines Shaw’s heterogeneous practices and the reception of his claims by naturalists as he struggled to find (...) a footing on the “gradient of attributed competence” (Rudwick 1985). The case demonstrates the context-specific nature of expert-lay boundaries and identities and explores a range of material and linguistic resources available for negotiating them. Arguing for a view of Shaw’s trajectory as simultaneously one of being a “practical man” and of becoming a naturalist, the paper explores both the permeability of social hierarchies in knowledge production and their effective role in the regulation of competency. (shrink)

We all agree that democratic decision-making requires a factual input, and most of us assume that when the pertinent facts are not in plain view they should be furnished by well-functioning scientific institutions. But how should liberal democracy respond when apparently sincere, rational and well-informed citizens object to coercive legislation because it is based on what they consider a misguided trust in certain parts of science? Cases are familiar, the most prominent concerning climate science and evolution, but one may also (...) count GMO-skepticism and vaccine-skepticism, and there are plenty of others. The paper defends what I, borrowing an expression from Badiola, call Science as Public Reason, asserting roughly that some policy-relevant factual proposition P is part of public reason if and only if there is consensus about P among scientific experts in the relevant well-functioning scientific institutions. I defend this view against the controversiality objection claiming that scientific findings cannot in this general way pass as public reason as they are sometimes controversial among reasonable citizens. My preferred line of defense is what I call Dogmatism about Science as Public Reason, which roughly amounts to insisting on Science as Public Reason on the ground that it is a philosophically well-motivated view, while conceding that it may not be acceptable to all minimally rational and well-informed individuals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Incoherence of Determining Death by Neurological Criteria: A Commentary on Controversies in the Determination of Death, A White Paper by the President’s Council on Bioethics*Franklin G. Miller** (bio) and Robert D. Truog (bio)Traditionally the cessation of breathing and heart beat has marked the passage from life to death. Shortly after death was determined, the body became a cold corpse, suitable for burial or cremation. Two technological changes (...) in the second half of the twentieth century prompted calls for a new, or at least expanded, definition of death: the development of intensive care medicine, especially the use of mechanical ventilators, and the advent of successful transplantation of vital organs. Patients with profound neurological damage, leaving them incapable of breathing on their own and in an irreversible coma, could be maintained for some period of time with the aid of mechanical ventilation. The situation of these patients posed two ethical questions. Is it appropriate to stop life-sustaining treatment? If so, is it acceptable to retrieve vital organs for transplantation to save the lives of others before stopping treatment?In 1968, the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death proposed that death could be determined on the basis of neurological criteria, thus providing a positive answer to these two questions (Ad Hoc Committee 1968). According to the position of this committee, patients diagnosed with the cessation of brain function are dead, despite the fact that they breathe and circulate blood with the aid of mechanical ventilation. [End Page 185] Because they are dead, it is appropriate, indeed imperative, to stop mechanical ventilation. And because they are dead, it becomes ethical to procure vital organs for transplantation before stopping what otherwise would be life-sustaining treatment. Remarkably, this innovative neurological determination of death became, with little debate or controversy, the established position in medical ethics and the law throughout the United States.The Harvard Committee articulated the diagnosis of “irreversible coma,” but merely asserted that this condition constituted death. No explanatory rationale was provided. It fell to the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research to provide an authoritative rationale in its 1981 report, Defining Death. The second paragraph of the report set the stage as follows: “The question addressed here is not inherently difficult or complicated. Simply, it is whether the law ought to recognize new means for establishing that the death of a human being has occurred” (President’s Commission 1981, p. 3). The Commission claimed that “death is a unitary phenomenon” (p. 7) and that the determination of death by neurological criteria, in terms of the absence of all brain function, is consistent with the traditional conception of death as the cessation of vital functioning of the organism as a whole. The key issue is the integrative functioning of the human organism, which ceases to exist, according to the Commission, when the whole brain, including higher cortical areas and the brain stem, fails to function. Although “brain-dead” patients do not appear to be dead—i.e., the reality of their death is “masked” by the activity of mechanical ventilation—the patient’s body has irreversibly lost all capacity for integrative functioning. In the words of the Commission: “When artificial means of support mask this loss of integration as measured by the old methods [cessation of respiration and heart beat], brain-oriented criteria and tests provide a new window on the same phenomenon” (p. 33). The President’s Commission was instrumental in developing and establishing “The Uniform Definition of Death Act”: “An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead” (p. 2).Although the question posed by the President’s Commission was easy to articulate, the answer, over time, has proved complicated and controversial. The coherence and cogency of determining death by neurological criteria has been challenged. Various experts have demonstrated that “brain-dead” patients maintained on mechanical ventilation display a range of vital, integrative, functioning, which conflicts with the judgment that they are dead (Truog and... (shrink)

Crito was written in response to popular slanders concerning Socrates' failure to escape from prison, and accompanying misgivings within the Socratic circle. Plato responds by asking his audience to disregard the slander of the mob and obey the moral expert instead. But he also responds by creating an image of Socrates and his friends widely at odds with the popular slander; by implying that Socrates' critics were themselves guilty of some of the behaviour they charged against Socrates; by pointing (...) out that Socrates had no viable alternative to death; and, in partial contradiction to all this, by rejecting the popular morality which saw Socrates' abandonment and death as signs of failure. In the rhetorical climax of the composition, Plato shows that Socrates chose to die rather than victimize or offend the laws of the city, which he represents as sentient beings. The weaknesses that have been perceived in the arguments of the Athenian Laws are not fatal to the composition, because it aims not at a convincing demonstration, but at providing a portrait of Socrates' own overwhelming conviction of the rightness of his decision. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Incoherence of Determining Death by Neurological Criteria: A Commentary on Controversies in the Determination of Death, A White Paper by the President’s Council on Bioethics*Franklin G. Miller** (bio) and Robert D. Truog (bio)Traditionally the cessation of breathing and heart beat has marked the passage from life to death. Shortly after death was determined, the body became a cold corpse, suitable for burial or cremation. Two technological changes (...) in the second half of the twentieth century prompted calls for a new, or at least expanded, definition of death: the development of intensive care medicine, especially the use of mechanical ventilators, and the advent of successful transplantation of vital organs. Patients with profound neurological damage, leaving them incapable of breathing on their own and in an irreversible coma, could be maintained for some period of time with the aid of mechanical ventilation. The situation of these patients posed two ethical questions. Is it appropriate to stop life-sustaining treatment? If so, is it acceptable to retrieve vital organs for transplantation to save the lives of others before stopping treatment?In 1968, the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death proposed that death could be determined on the basis of neurological criteria, thus providing a positive answer to these two questions (Ad Hoc Committee 1968). According to the position of this committee, patients diagnosed with the cessation of brain function are dead, despite the fact that they breathe and circulate blood with the aid of mechanical ventilation. [End Page 185] Because they are dead, it is appropriate, indeed imperative, to stop mechanical ventilation. And because they are dead, it becomes ethical to procure vital organs for transplantation before stopping what otherwise would be life-sustaining treatment. Remarkably, this innovative neurological determination of death became, with little debate or controversy, the established position in medical ethics and the law throughout the United States.The Harvard Committee articulated the diagnosis of “irreversible coma,” but merely asserted that this condition constituted death. No explanatory rationale was provided. It fell to the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research to provide an authoritative rationale in its 1981 report, Defining Death. The second paragraph of the report set the stage as follows: “The question addressed here is not inherently difficult or complicated. Simply, it is whether the law ought to recognize new means for establishing that the death of a human being has occurred” (President’s Commission 1981, p. 3). The Commission claimed that “death is a unitary phenomenon” (p. 7) and that the determination of death by neurological criteria, in terms of the absence of all brain function, is consistent with the traditional conception of death as the cessation of vital functioning of the organism as a whole. The key issue is the integrative functioning of the human organism, which ceases to exist, according to the Commission, when the whole brain, including higher cortical areas and the brain stem, fails to function. Although “brain-dead” patients do not appear to be dead—i.e., the reality of their death is “masked” by the activity of mechanical ventilation—the patient’s body has irreversibly lost all capacity for integrative functioning. In the words of the Commission: “When artificial means of support mask this loss of integration as measured by the old methods [cessation of respiration and heart beat], brain-oriented criteria and tests provide a new window on the same phenomenon” (p. 33). The President’s Commission was instrumental in developing and establishing “The Uniform Definition of Death Act”: “An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead” (p. 2).Although the question posed by the President’s Commission was easy to articulate, the answer, over time, has proved complicated and controversial. The coherence and cogency of determining death by neurological criteria has been challenged. Various experts have demonstrated that “brain-dead” patients maintained on mechanical ventilation display a range of vital, integrative, functioning, which conflicts with the judgment that they are dead (Truog and... (shrink)