We Were Promised Jet Packs, but Still: Science as an Epistemic Authority in Our Modern World

• In Event: Educational Responses to a Post-Truth World: Diverse Theoretical Approaches to Improving Thinking About Scientific Issues

Abstract

Nowadays, scientists have become increasingly worried about the public’s indifference to science. Even worse, various examples of (purposeful) misinterpretation and denial of scientific evidence indicate that the role of science in our society is being put to the test. Therefore, science communicators and science educators seek to re-establish science’s epistemic authority: ideally, citizens should accept that science should inform everyday decisions and act in accordance with scientific consensus.

Science is a cognitive, rationale endeavor: scientific knowledge construction is distinguished by systematic examination of theory-driven models. But simultaneously science is also a social endeavor: Scientific knowledge construction is usually done cooperatively, scientific evidence is evaluated according to agreed-on standards, scientific ‘knowledge’ derives from argumentation and consensus among scientists. This social layer of science includes that concurring claims and disagreement between scientists are science-inherent, but can be mingled with interpersonal conflicts. We argue that accepting science as an epistemic authority relies on understanding both layers of science.

Recent science communication approaches such as science blogs or open labs enable citizens to participate in or at least witness scientific knowledge construction (see NGSS (2013) for comparable trends in science education). Such participatory approaches aim to stress science’s epistemic authority by exemplifying that science does not lie outside of the public. We emphasize that they also illustrate the cognitive and social layer of science: citizens can witness how scientists construct scientific knowledge in blogs or open labs. Thereby they come across information on methods and procedures used to establish knowledge. Furthermore, participatory approaches entail interactions that offer insight into the social layer of science. They make conversations, including conflicts between scientists, accessible to citizens which otherwise would have been taken place within academia (Hendriks et al., 2016). Those could threaten science’s epistemic authority as citizens expect science to provide sound knowledge.

Therefore, our instructional recommendation for science communication and science education is to emphasize the two layers of science. We will develop a first instructional attempt to do so: preliminary studies indicate that emphasizing the inevitable agreed-on uncertainty of scientific findings can help participants to distinguish between topic-inherent and interpersonal conflicts (Kienhues & Bromme, 2012). We will argue that only if citizens understand that argumentation and communication are an integral part of scientific knowledge construction, then participatory attempts can reach their potential and epitomize the values and credentials that characterize science. Future research should investigate if the sharing of scientific disagreements with citizens could help to re-establish science’s epistemic authority and be a steppingstone for real public engagement with science.

Authors

• Dorothe Kienhues, University of Muenster

• Rainer F. Bromme, University of Münster