Conference: Assessing expertise in policy controversies
Readers of this blog may be interested in a conference we are organizing here at Iowa State University next summer; see the conference website for full details.
Between Scientists & Citizens: Assessing Expertise In Policy Controversies
June 1-2, 2012
Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Keynote speakers:
- Sally Jackson, Communication, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana
- Massimo Pigliucci, Philosophy, Lehman College, CUNY
We are increasingly dependent on advice from experts in making decisions in our personal, professional, and civic lives. But as our dependence on experts has grown, new media have broken down the institutional barriers between the technical, personal and civic realms, and we are inundated with purported science from all sides. Many share a sense that science has lost its “rightful place” in our deliberations. Grappling with this cluster of problems will require collaboration across disciplines: among rhetorical and communication theorists studying the practices and norms of public discourse, philosophers interested in the informal logic of everyday reasoning and in the theory of deliberative democracy, and science studies scholars examining the intersections between the social worlds of scientists and citizens. For this conference, we invite work on expertise in policy controversies from across the disciplines focused on argumentation, reasoning, rhetoric, communication and deliberation.
Jean,
Much of current science is made up majority of consensus. Much of it is statements or conclusion by individuals to the area of study. Our experts due to our trust, that they are correct and knowledgeable in the individual area’s being studied.
We have no type of review mechanism for when new technology or new areas being studied contradicts the current path of science. Much of the current path of study was tainted by the society mindset of the day. Experiments and examples that they may include, we trust that ALL the known and unknown parameters were included. Which they have not as technology outpaced the science.
Generations have built upon what has been taught through our education system to expand on bad science and it’s conclusions.
Physical motion in science is understudied and under rated to the current science but has the majority of effects to change massively many areas by shear differences in speeds. Complexity of including ALL parameters makes for a very interesting mix of history to future predictions of the path this planet change into.
But scientists need to change the bad habits developed of enclosing themselves into individual cocoons.
Joe Lalonde
August 17, 2011 at 5:55 am
Jean,
Climate science is just an archive of meteorology. Keeping statistical recordings for long term predictions.
Has this field been working ethically, with integrity, and honesty?
CO2 has been tested in countless way by itself, yet much literature is of CO2 and BTU’s as just straight C02 causing the planet to overheat. Not separating BTU’s from being generated from CO2 just ensures more confusion into the issue.
Joe Lalonde
August 19, 2011 at 3:52 am