What is it about?
This short letter condense part of a book written on the subject of science's crisis and its wider implication. http://www.andreasaltelli.eu/science-on-the-verge. The book investigates the root causes of the present crisis. In fact almost all the thinking had been done already by the co-author of this letter, historian of philosophy Jerome R. Ravetz, in a book he wrote in 1971: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... Some excerpts from this book are here: http://www.andreasaltelli.eu/f... From these you see that Ravetz warned four decades ago about the risks to science's quality control system stemming from the passage from little science to big science. For those who have followed his work (Ravetz is also one of the fathers of post-normal science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science) a good diagnosis of the deep causes of the crisis is essential. To make a long story short we say that remedies 'from within' the house of science are useful and necessary but insufficient. The argument is developed in the book just mentioned with some hints of possible paths to solutions.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
This is a complex matter. At the root it has to do with the relation of dual legitimacy linking science and social order (or power). When trust in knowledge (=today synonymous with science) is eroded the legitimacy of the associated social order - our democracies - also come under strain.
Perspectives
It is difficult not to say impossible to say how all this will play out. My personal impression is that scientists are doing several things the wrong way, defending corporate interest, pretending to speak in the name of "science", promoting science as a working metaphysics, and by a large majority subscribing to a "deficit model" whereby if only the lay public wold understand better science (or statistics or economics, depending on the affiliation of the scientist) then all would be in order. This belief is all the more surprising the more evident the failures of the respective disciplines become known to the same lay public. This is a clear locus of conflict.
Professor Andrea Saltelli
University Pompeo Fabra, Barcelona School of Management
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Policy: The future of public trust in science, Nature, August 2015, Nature,
DOI: 10.1038/524161d.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
