https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hast.1227 * Skip to Article Content * Skip to Article Information Working off-campus? Learn about our remote access options Wiley Online Library Wiley Online Library [ ]Search within[This Journal] * Search term[ ] Advanced Search Citation Search * Search term[ ] Advanced Search Citation Search Login / Register [ad] Hastings Center Report Volume 51, Issue S1 p. S36-S39Hastings Center Report Moral and Social Challenges of Civic Learning Free Access Trust: The Need for Public Understanding of How Science Works Miriam Solomon Search for more papers by this author Miriam Solomon Search for more papers by this author First published: 25 February 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.1227 About Sections PDFPDF Tools * Request permission * Export citation * Add to favorites * Track citation ShareShare Give access Share full text access Share full-text access Please review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article. [ ]I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of Use --------------------------------------------------------------------- Shareable Link Use the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more. [ ] Copy URL Share a link Share on * Email * Facebook * Twitter * Linked In * Reddit * Wechat Abstract General science literacy contributes to good public decision-making about technology and medicine. This essay explores the kinds of science literacy currently developed by public education in the United States of America. It argues that current curricula on "science as inquiry" (formerly the "nature of science") need to be brought up to date with the inclusion of discussion of social epistemological concepts such as trust and scientific authority, scientific disagreement versus science denialism, the role of ideology and bias in scientific research, and the importance of peer review and responsiveness to criticism. In a democratic society, general science literacy contributes to good public decision-making about technology and medicine. It is important for the public, as well as legislators, to be able to understand the scientific background to environmental policy questions and public health issues. This is because the public vote, they take political action, and--in a strong democracy--they participate in deliberation. (For more on the importance of civic learning, see Meira Levinson and Mildred Solomon's essay as well as Sheila Jasanoff's in this special report.^1) General science literacy is supposed to be developed by public education. In the United States, science is a required part of the curriculum in elementary, middle, and high schools, and specific learning objectives are decided at the state level under the guidance of the National Science Education Standards. These standards emphasize "science as inquiry," which is a focus on the methods of science.^2 An older term for a similar focus on methodology is the "nature of science." For example, the state of Pennsylvania's standards for science and technology education are spelled out in a thirty-five-page brochure. In kindergarten through fourth grades, for example, students learn how to "[d]istinguish between scientific fact and opinion"; in fifth through seventh grades, "how theories are developed"; in eighth through tenth, how to "[f]ormulate and revise explanations and models using logic and evidence"; and in eleventh and twelfth, how to "[j]udge that conclusions are consistent and logical with experimental conditions."^3 This is training in the norms of scientific inquiry, and it is intended to provide students with a set of tools for evaluating the work of other scientists as well as standards for their own work. From my perspective as a philosopher of science, "science as inquiry" does not provide an adequate account of how science works. Its scope is much too narrow because it does not include many of the epistemic tools needed to do and evaluate science. It reflects the assumptions of post-World War II era philosophy of science--often called "logical empiricism"--and does not make use of what we have learned since, from Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions to feminist critiques of science to history of science to social epistemological work on science. In particular, "science as inquiry" does not tell us to expect scientific disagreement when science is working well, much less how to understand it. Furthermore, "science as inquiry" does not tell us how to distinguish between genuine scientific disagreement and science denialism masquerading as genuine scientific disagreement. It does not tell us when to trust or distrust the claims of a scientist or a scientific community. These broader social epistemic skills are important for science literacy. (Gregory Kaebnick's essay in this special report develops similar points.^4) The Climate Change Debate and the Nature of Science Consider the controversy over anthropogenic climate change. As Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway have argued,^5 the public perception that this controversy is a scientific controversy was intentionally manufactured by a group of industrialists who used the tobacco industry's denial of the adverse health effects of tobacco as their model. Using the slogan "Doubt is our product," their strategy is to create doubt by misrepresenting evidence, exaggerating disagreements between climate scientists, and putting forward alternative explanations for empirical findings. Creating doubt has been enough to delay action, so that many smokers have continued to smoke, and many of those invested in carbon-emitting industries have not felt compelled to change course. "Science as inquiry" education, at its best, teaches students an ideal set of methods for improving scientific knowledge. It suggests that our current scientific knowledge has grown, over the past four centuries since the scientific revolution (when modern science is widely held to have come about), in this ideal way. Even if that were true, there is an implicit dependence on students trusting that what they are taught in the classroom has been discovered and justified in this ideal way. Classroom science does not rediscover and justify our scientific knowledge anew for each group of students. Most of science content--which is to say, most of science education--is taught through trust: trust of teachers, of textbooks, and of other pedagogical tools such as educational videos and other kinds of science literature. This reliance on trust is not mentioned in "nature of science" curricula. Nor was it mentioned by logical empiricists, who focused on individual rather than social epistemological questions. Believing based on trust is a pervasive human practice, not confined to scientific inquiry. It starts in infancy, when children learn language, everyday facts, and even religious beliefs from their caregivers. Trust is only as reliable as the source of the knowledge; when that source is unreliable, we sometimes regard beliefs based on trust as the product of indoctrination. Trust can be eroded when there is evidence of the unreliability of the source. Reflective knowledge should therefore include some account of the reliability of the source of knowledge. In the case of scientific knowledge, students are taught that the science content they learn (from teachers and textbooks) is reliable because it is the result of the application of scientific methods--the methods they are taught in "science as inquiry." Much of the time, this claim is not backed up with adequate historical evidence of the discovery and justification of current theories. At most, there are vignettes of historical moments that mark serendipitous discoveries or creative insights that played some role in scientific change but are not the whole story. At least since Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions,^6 historians and philosophers of science have been aware that the traditional methods of science--as described in "science as inquiry"--do not give a complete picture of how scientists develop, test, refine, and replace scientific theories. That ideologies, peer pressure, confirmation bias, and a host of other "biasing factors" play an ineliminable role in the process of doing science is now widely acknowledged. Yet "science as inquiry" has not adjusted to these findings. It continues to regard any bias as bad for science and to insist on the overall neutrality, "logicality," and objectivity of science. As a result, there is much about the history of science, as well as about contemporary science, that "science as inquiry" misrepresents. According to "science as inquiry," scientists all follow the same "logical" and "evidence-based" scientific methods and so should reach the same conclusions. Scientific uncertainty may be common, in this view, but scientific disagreement should not be. When scientific disagreement arises, it is interpreted as likely showing that one or more scientists have bias. For example, the resistance to Galileo's heliocentrism is often represented to science students as, simply, religious resistance to scientific truth. This is historically incorrect: the situation in seventeenth-century physics and astronomy was quite complex, and there was evidence for and against both geocentrism and heliocentrism. Nevertheless, a good many scientists took sides at the time, and a typical scientific controversy ensued, with evidence and biases on both sides. Sociologically oriented historians of science (for example, Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch^7) have sometimes drawn skeptical conclusions from such examples, even arguing that scientific methods are a weak constraint on scientific change. More commonly, there have been attempts in the philosophy of science and feminist science studies communities to give an account of scientific change that gives a neutral or even positive role to biasing factors. For example, Johannes Kepler's mystical views enabled the development of Kepler's laws of planetary motion, which proved useful in developing a more accurate understanding of the solar system. Galileo's overconfidence in his own theories helped him interpret telescopic data favorably, allowing him to present the best case for his views. In general, scientific disagreement--often produced by varied biases--can be an opportunity for the distribution of research effort, with the effect that multiple avenues of research can be pursued simultaneously, which is more efficient than scientific agreement would be. Thus, scientific disagreement should not be interpreted as an indication that something has gone wrong (that there is unacceptable bias on one side or another) but, rather, that science is proceeding as usual, exploring various options in areas of uncertainty. Moreover, scientific agreement among experts--typically interpreted by logical empiricists as the result of univocal scientific method and as an indicator of truth--should be seen more critically for what it is: social agreement. It could be the result of overwhelming evidence--but it could also (or instead) be the result of a scientific culture that reinforces conformity and erases dissent (as in the Soviet Union during the Lysenko era, when the agronomist Trofim Lysenko, with support from the government, prevented Soviet agriculture from accepting Mendelian rules of inheritance and modern genetic science). Alternatively, consensus could be a rhetorical strategy in a scientific community that wishes to present a unified front to the public and other outsiders. This is the concern in the climate change debate: are scientists suppressing dissent? When Naomi Oreskes writes that "[i]t is time for the rest of us to listen" to the scientific consensus on climate change, she is making an appeal to scientific authority.^8 This raises an important social epistemological question: why should we trust scientific authority on the matter of climate change? Answering this question requires social epistemological tools, such as those developed by Helen Longino on social norms for scientific objectivity, Sandra Harding on appropriate kinds of diversity,^9 and Alvin Goldman on when experts are trustworthy. In fairness, Oreskes develops some of these tools; she does not rest with an appeal to scientific authority, although she starts there.^10 Helen Longino's account of the social conditions for scientific objectivity has been particularly influential.^11 She calls for four conditions for objective science: tempered equality of intellectual authority, public forums for criticism, responsiveness to criticism, and a shared commitment to empirical adequacy. Tempered equality of intellectual authority is the idea that authority should be strictly dependent on expertise and not on, for example, the prestige or charisma of a subset of scientists. Public forums for criticism include conferences at which there are open question-and-answer periods. Responsiveness to criticism is shown by meaningful response to questions and revision of ideas. And a shared commitment to empirical adequacy is shown by common recognition that science attempts to be faithful to empirical findings, through explanation, prediction, and successful manipulation. When these four conditions are fulfilled, the science is objective; when they are not, objectivity is not achieved. Greater and lesser degrees of objectivity are typical. The more objectivity, the better the science is doing. Like many feminist philosophers of science, Longino does not think that consensus is the goal of science. She is a pluralist who thinks that no one theory or approach is likely to capture the full complexity of natural phenomena. Although, to my knowledge, she has not discussed the debate over climate change in any detail, her ideas about objectivity apply fruitfully. I think that Longino would acknowledge that there is scientific consensus about anthropogenic climate change while stressing that there are many differences in the scientific community about the detailed mechanisms and rates of change. These differences show fruitful dissent and should be encouraged. She would see the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's consensus statement for what it is: a political intervention rather than an overview of the state of knowledge about climate change. The IPCC statement summarizes what we need to know for political purposes: it is time to act to prevent disastrous climate change. Longino would also have much to say about climate change deniers and their failure to satisfy the four conditions for objective science: climate change deniers, even when they have some scientific background, tend not to be climate scientists (hence, they should have less authority than they claim); they do not present their views in ways that can be publicly criticized (such as at scientific conferences); they do not meaningfully respond to criticisms; and they have not contributed to empirical adequacy by generating successful novel explanations, predictions, or manipulations. The last condition--a commitment to empirical adequacy--is necessary for doing science. (The first three conditions are necessary for objectivity.) I believe that Longino would say that climate change deniers are not doing science and that the debate over the reality of anthropogenic climate change is not a scientific debate. (It would take some additional argument to show that climate change deniers do not satisfy these conditions. Oreskes and Conway and others have done this work.) Scientific Dissent versus Science Denialism Applying Longino's social epistemology of science to climate science shows how social epistemological ideas can be used to distinguish scientific dissent from science denialism, as well as used to question any overemphasis on scientific consensus. Other work in social epistemology of science with normative implications includes Goldman's on how to assess scientific expertise, my own on when consensus is scientifically appropriate, and Carole Lee's on the social epistemology of peer review.^12 Without such social epistemological tools, civic understanding of the climate change debate is impoverished. "Science as inquiry," with its focus on evidence and logic, can do no more than communicate the details of a few empirical studies. Moreover, with its high standards of bias-free science, it sets a standard that much worthwhile science fails to meet. The critiques by climate change denialists of climate change science--pointing out the few errors, biases, and ambiguities in the science--are more worrisome on a "science as inquiry" approach than on an approach that recognizes the social dimensions of the epistemology of science. Without an understanding of the central epistemic role of trust, evaluating the evidence for climate change is not possible because no individual can be familiar with more than a small portion of the evidence. And without a social epistemological critique of the claims of climate change deniers, it is difficult to recognize that they are not doing credible science. This means we need to rethink basic science education. It should normalize scientific disagreement (distinguishing it from science denialism) and include discussion of the social epistemological institutions and processes by which scientific inquiry proceeds. These include the education of future researchers as graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, the peer review process for grants and publications, the discursive interactions of researchers in laboratory meetings and conferences, diversity and inclusion issues, and the norms of scientific integrity. This wider discussion will provide a richer set of resources for evaluating competing claims to knowledge. Acknowledgments Many thanks to the reviewers of this manuscript for helpful discussions and comments. References * 1M. Levinson and M. Z. Solomon, "Can Our Schools Help Us Preserve Democracy? Special Challenges at a Time of Shifting Norms," and S. Jasanoff, " The Vanishing Square: Civic Learning in the Internet Age," both in Democracy in Crisis: Civic Learning and the Reconstruction of Common Purpose, ed. G. E. Kaebnick et al., special report, Hastings Center Report 51, no. 1 (2021): S15- S22 and S5-S9, respectively. Google Scholar * 2 National Research Council, National Science Education Standards ( Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1996), at https:// www.nap.edu/catalog/4962/national-science-education-standards. Google Scholar * 3 Pennsylvania Department of Education, Academic Standards for Science and Technology, 2002, https:// www.stateboard.education.pa.gov/Documents/ Regulations%20and%20Statements/State%20Academic%20Standards/ ScienceandTechnologyStandards.pdf. Google Scholar * 4G. E. Kaebnick, " Civic Learning When the Facts Are Politicized: How Values Shape Facts, and What to Do about It," in Democracy in Crisis: Civic Learning and the Reconstruction of Common Purpose, ed. G. E. Kaebnick et al., special report, Hastings Center Report 51, no. 1 (2021): S40- S45. Google Scholar * 5N. Oreskes and E. M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, 1st U.S. ed. ( New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010). Google Scholar * 6T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). Google Scholar * 7H. M. Collins and T. J. Pinch, The Golem: What Everyone Should Know about Science ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993 ). Google Scholar * 8N. Oreskes, " Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change," Science 306 (2004): 1686. Crossref CAS PubMed Web of Science(r)Google Scholar * 9S. Harding, Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015 ). Crossref Google Scholar * 10N. Oreskes, " The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We're Not Wrong?," in Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren, ed. J. F. DiMento and P. Doughman ( Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 65- 101. Google Scholar * 11H. E. Longino, Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). Crossref Google Scholar * 12A. I. Goldman, " Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63, no. 1 (2001): 85- 110; M. Solomon, Social Empiricism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001); C. J. Lee, "Commensuration Bias in Peer Review," Philosophy of Science 82, no. 4 (2015): 1272-83. Wiley Online Library Web of Science(r)Google Scholar [hast] Volume51, IssueS1 Supplement: Democracy in Crisis: Civic Learning and the Reconstruction of Common Purpose January-February 2021 Pages S36-S39 [ad] * References * Related * Information * * * [ad] * [spinner] Close Figure Viewer Return to Figure[ ] Previous FigureNext Figure Caption Download PDF Additional links About Wiley Online Library * Privacy Policy * Terms of Use * Cookies * Accessibility Help & Support * Contact Us Opportunities * Subscription Agents * Advertisers & Corporate Partners Connect with Wiley * The Wiley Network * Wiley Press Room Copyright (c) 1999-2021 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved Wiley Home Page The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties. [logo-heade] Log in to Wiley Online Library Email or Customer ID [ ] Password [ ] Forgot password? [Log In] NEW USER > INSTITUTIONAL LOGIN > [logo-heade] Change Password Old Password [ ] New Password [ ] Too Short Weak Medium Strong Very Strong Too Long [Submit] Password Changed Successfully Your password has been changed Create a new account Email or Customer ID [ ] [Register] Returning user [logo-heade] Forgot your password? Enter your email address below. Email or Customer ID [ ] [RESET PASSWORD] Please check your email for instructions on resetting your password. If you do not receive an email within 10 minutes, your email address may not be registered, and you may need to create a new Wiley Online Library account. Request Username Can't sign in? Forgot your username? Enter your email address below and we will send you your username Email or Customer ID [ ] [Submit] Close If the address matches an existing account you will receive an email with instructions to retrieve your username