UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies

As every year, the Department of Science and Technology Studies at UCL and the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences at the LSE are organizing a seminar series (now probably in its 17th year - but we start losing track of the exact dates!) on integrated history and philosophy of science. The seminar's ambition, in a tradition originating from Nancy Cartwright and Hasok Chang, has always been to gather an "All-London" community of historians and philosophers of science around themes of common interest. This year we are keeping the tradition alive by proposing a historical exploration of Logical Empiricism and its legacy in HPS.

Abstract: In 2010, the BBC Trust commissioned a review of the accuracy and impartiality of the BBC’s science coverage. This seminar will examine how the notion impartiality applies to science journalism by drawing on the results of a content analysis conducted as part of the BBC’s impartiality review. I will argue that commentators often adopt a narrow interpretation of impartiality as balance which has over-simplified debates about the media coverage of topics such as climate change. The findings of the content analysis raise questions about the sourcing strategies and transparency of the BBC’s science reporting which, I suggest, are important to ensuring impartiality.

Abstract: Expert authority, it is often thought, is undermined by criticism, dissent and contestation from lay people. I will question this view by suggesting a strong parallel between expert and political authority. In this paper I aim to specify the democratic potentials of public contestation of expertise through the concept of 'epistemic disobedience'. I define epistemic disobedience as organized minorities refusing to accept expert claims to authority. The paper will have two main parts. First I will discuss what I mean by ‘expert claims to authority’, ‘refusing to accept’, and ‘organised minorities’ - a term I take from Hannah Arendt’s discussion of civil disobedience. I will do this in reference to the case of resistance to UK immunisation policy in the wake of a public controversy over the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. This case, I suggest, embodies some of the key features of epistemic disobedience, and it also enables me to locate my perspective against the various interpretations of this case. In the second part of the paper I will discuss the democratic value of epistemic disobedience. Of course, research in public understanding of science has long established that public contestation of science and expertise often encompasses much broader issues and commitments than a narrow technical framing admits - and this is borne out in various analyses of the vaccine controversy. What the concept of epistemic disobedience adds to this discussion and brings into sharper focus is the way in which such contestation can actually be constitutive of democratic practices of expert authority. I will elaborate this point with reference to the relation between civil disobedience and the legitimation of political authority. Taking inspiration from Pierre Rosanvallon, I will conclude by suggesting that epistemic disobedience is just one example of the many forms of 'organised mistrust' that make up a 'counter-democracy' of science.

Another Film Night at the Grant Museum.

UCL will be hosting 7th annual UK Integrated HPS workshop this June.

UCL Open Day is Wednesday, 4th July 2012.