In the next Perspectives on Science seminar, Ahmad Elabbar (University of Cambridge) will give a talk titled “Trusting scientific advisors as epistemic curators: from error to attention”.
The seminar takes place in person at Metsätalo and online via Zoom from 14:15 to 15:45 on Tuesday the 5th of November 2024. To join the seminar, please contact jessica.north@helsinki.fi for the location or Zoom invitation.
Perspectives on Science is a research seminar which brings together experts from the philosophy of science and several fields of science studies. It is organized by TINT – Centre for Philosophy of Social Science at the University of Helsinki. More information about the seminar can be found on the TINT web page https://tint.helsinki.fi.
Abstract:
Scientific advice plays a key role in shaping public policy. In light of its influence, and the growing realisation among philosophers of the depth of value-ladenness in science, the literature on epistemic trust in science has recently flourished. Yet, despite its richness, work on epistemic trust in science remains ‘error-centric’: epistemic trust in science is understood in terms of the reliability of inquiry, epistemic risk, and expert disagreement, among other related notions that centre on error. In this talk, I argue for expanding accounts of epistemic trust in science away from error towards attention. Building on an account of scientific advice as ‘epistemic curation’, and a case study of the IPCC’s assessment of the collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet, I argue trusting scientific advisors as epistemic curators requires more than what error-centric accounts presume. In particular, it requires that we look beyond questions of reliability and error-management towards the fair distribution of attention.
Author bio:
Ahmad Elabbar completed a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge in 2024. His thesis developed a framework of distributive epistemic justice for global climate assessment. He is currently the Adrian Research Fellow in Environmental Humanities at Darwin College, Cambridge, where he will continue working on the distribution of climate science. He is interested in the ethics and politics of science more broadly, and in bringing perspectives from political theory into the social epistemology of science and values-in-science literatures.