Research Science has never been more prolific – so why has trust in science plummeted?

[C C]

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1139536

INTRO: From genome editing to quantum computing, scientific progress accelerates at an unprecedented pace, yet public faith in science is collapsing. Our species has mapped the human genome, created powerful computers that sit in the palms of our hands and extended human lifespans beyond what our ancestors could have imagined – meanwhile anti-intellectualism movements gather pace.

According to Professor Dariusz Jemielniak in his new book Anti-Science: Shortcuts to a Big Idea, it is not due to public ignorance or a failure to communicate science to the masses. Instead, we’re witnessing and living through something far more complex, a fundamental shift in how society relates to knowledge itself.

“We have entered a period in which the relationship between information and truth has become fundamentally contested,” Professor Jemielniak of Kozminski University explains. “The technologies that promised democratized access to knowledge have also democratized access to falsehood.”

Survey data from the mid-twentieth century showed high levels of confidence in scientists and scientific institutions. Science was associated with progress, prosperity and problem-solving, and the profession itself was well-respected.

Today, that well of public trust has been drained dramatically. There are many complex factors behind this decline, Jemielniak explains, from corporate influence scandals, well-publicised cases of fraud, high profile retractions and the sheer volume of scientific information now produced.

These factors are not enough to erode public trust alone, he explains, but is combined with a perfect storm of digital infrastructure that encourages shock-factor information sharing at speed. Social media algorithms amplify sensational claims regardless of truth value, while echo chambers make it easy to find communities that validate virtually any belief.

“What is historically distinctive is the contemporary infrastructure that accelerates these cycles by rewarding outrage, simplifying complex disputes into identity signals, and turning epistemic conflict into content,” Jemielniak explains.

Some scholars argue humanity is even entering ‘a new Dark Ages driven by anti-intellectualism’. Jemielniak says: “The proliferation of digital platforms has allowed misinformation to spread rapidly, challenging the public’s ability to discern credible information and contributing to this erosion of trust.”

Jemielniak suggests one part of the problem lies in science’s very success – because modern science has become so advanced and therefore specialised, even scientists struggle to understand fields outside their own expertise.

“When people cannot evaluate scientific claims for themselves, they must rely on trust,” he explains. “And when that trust is shaken – by scandal, by conflicting expert opinions, by the sheer alienating complexity of scientific discourse – the door opens for alternative explanations that feel more accessible, more human, more intuitively satisfying.”

This creates what Jemielniak calls ‘epistemic dependence’, where rational belief depends not on direct evidence but on a kind of trust, in trusting the experts have good reasons... (MORE - no ads)

PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003726517

[Yazata]

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1139536

Our species has mapped the human genome, created powerful computers that sit in the palms of our hands and extended human lifespans beyond what our ancestors could have imagined – meanwhile anti-intellectualism movements gather pace.

"Anti-intellectualism movements"? Could the author gives us a few examples of those?

“We have entered a period in which the relationship between information and truth has become fundamentally contested,” Professor Jemielniak of Kozminski University explains. “The technologies that promised democratized access to knowledge have also democratized access to falsehood.”

There's an inplicit assumption there that knowledge can be clearly distinguished from falsehood. I'd question that.

If we define 'knowledge' as 'justified true belief', problem no. 1 is that truth can't be directly perceived. At best, it's a (fallible) inference. Problem no.2 is determining what kind of justification(s) support the inference of truth and hence the knowledge-claim.

I'd also question the implicit assumption that the supposed problem is "democratized access to falsehood." It's not that the contest is between truth and falsehood. Nobody is championing falsehood. The issue is knowing which propositions are true and which aren't.

Survey data from the mid-twentieth century showed high levels of confidence in scientists and scientific institutions. Science was associated with progress, prosperity and problem-solving, and the profession itself was well-respected.

Yes, scientists once were perceived to be something close to demigods. The source of all wisdom on all matters. Which, if you think about it, is rather naive.

Today, that well of public trust has been drained dramatically.

And that seems to be the author's underlying complaint. That scientists don't enjoy the exaggerated social prestige that they once did. It's nothing new, it happened to priests centuries ago.

Some scholars argue humanity is even entering ‘a new Dark Ages driven by anti-intellectualism’. Jemielniak says: “The proliferation of digital platforms has allowed misinformation to spread rapidly, challenging the public’s ability to discern credible information and contributing to this erosion of trust.”

I'm not convinced that there's been a lot of erosion in the public's regard for science - in the abstract. Science as an ideal is probably as respected as it was in most of the past.

What's new(ish) is that scientists as a social group, individual scientists as human beings, are no longer automatically assumed to be superhuman representatives of ideal science. Scientists are perceived to be people with their own motivations which often extend far beyond purely scientific considerations. Scientists have their own political and social identities which they are often very concerned to advance, they might have financial motives, and there's the fact that academic culture rewards radical claims far more than it rewards replicating the results of those who have gone before. (Just think which papers get cited most often.) That latter produces science rhetoric often taking the form of "Everything that you believe is wrong! Let me set you straight!"

And that predictably results in some push-back. People say, 'If you want me to believe that, then you are going to have to convince me.'

Jemielniak suggests one part of the problem lies in science’s very success – because modern science has become so advanced and therefore specialised, even scientists struggle to understand fields outside their own expertise.

“When people cannot evaluate scientific claims for themselves, they must rely on trust,” he explains. “And when that trust is shaken – by scandal, by conflicting expert opinions, by the sheer alienating complexity of scientific discourse – the door opens for alternative explanations that feel more accessible, more human, more intuitively satisfying.”

Yes, that's very true.

What science in the ideal is thought to be is a method (or rather a whole set of methods), always provisional and tentative, for producing a rather delimited sort of ideas about the empirical physical universe that have reasonably high likelihood of being confirmed by subsequent experience.

But the way that it's often presented to the general public, science becomes a new theology that people are expected to simply believe on trust (we used to call that "faith") based simply on the authority of the scientists.

A question that I'd like to ask is: 'Why is it so important that we all believe the same thing'? Aren't we supposed to 'celebrate diversity'? Aren't we supposed to celebrate freedom of thought? Why does that all go away when the subject is science?

This creates what Jemielniak calls ‘epistemic dependence’, where rational belief depends not on direct evidence but on a kind of trust, in trusting the experts have good reasons...

And given the number of times that the public has been misled by doing that, more and more people have come to reject the idea of simply believing everything that scientists tell them.

And I for one, consider that a good thing. We can't be told that we need to exercise "critical thinking"... except when it's scientists telling us something, since whatever is said in the name of science must be unquestioningly believed.

Once again, that isn't really anti-intellectualism or rejection of science as an ideal. It's recognition that scientists are fallible human beings and often aren't nearly the paragons of dispassionate objective pure intellectualism that they try to pose as being. Instead their pronouncements might be hugely influenced by their politics, their (anti-)religion, their moral intuitions, their metaphysical assumptions, by social pressure and by their group identities generally.

It isn't that we are skeptical about science so much as we are skeptical about scientists.

[Syne]

The degree to which postmodernism (the denial of empirical, objective facts) has encroached on almost every field of science hasn't helped either.