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Trust of Science as a Public Collective Good

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2022

Matthew H. Slater Open the ORCID record for Matthew H. Slater [Opens in a new window]  and
Emily R. Scholfield
Matthew H. Slater*
Affiliation:
Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA
Emily R. Scholfield
Affiliation:
Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: matthew.slater@gmail.com
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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and global climate change crisis remind us that widespread trust in the products of the scientific enterprise is vital to the health and safety of the global community. Insofar as appropriate responses to these (and other) crises require us to trust that enterprise, cultivating a healthier trust relationship between science and the public may be considered as a collective public good. While it might appear that scientists can contribute to this good by taking more initiative to communicate their work to public audiences, we raise a concern about unintended consequences of an individualistic approach to such communication.

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Type
Symposia Paper
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 89 , Issue 5 , December 2022 , pp. 1044 - 1053
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

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