Expertise, Certainty and Trust

Description

 

Dr Stephen John (Dept of History and Philosophy of Science, HHCBSS, University of Cambridge)

This paper emerges from work done for a Department of Business, Industry and Skills project on “trust in science”. In the first part of the paper, I differentiate different ways in which the public and policy-makers might fail to trust researchers in the biomedical and environmental sciences, and differentiate different reasons why this might be problematic. In the second part of the paper, I focus in on problems associated with how experts handle “epistemic uncertainty”, and suggest an interesting convergence of interest between philosophers of science and researchers in STS on these concerns. In the third part of the paper, I argue that proposals as to how to respond to problems of trust arising from problems of epistemic uncertainty face significant problems. At the end of the paper, I suggest an alternative way of thinking about these issues.

 

Open to all. No registration required.

Part of the Science, Technology and Bio-Social Studies Forum (STBS) seminar series. 
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