Science, values, and pragmatic encroachment on knowledge

Miller, Boaz

doi:10.1007/s13194-014-0087-4

Cited by 15 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…This may suggest that minimizing knowledge claims reflect not only a strategic ritual, but also genuinely narrower levels of knowledge. First, aspiring for higher standards of certainty lowers the range of potential knowledge (Miller, 2014) especially in situation of uncertainty (Berkowitz and Zhengjia, 2016). Second, knowledge acquisition itself is a process that transpires over time, as the philosopher and psychologist William James had shown.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, the higher the standards of certainty an epistemic agent aspires to, the lower his or her chances for knowledge acquisition (Miller, 2014). This trade-off between levels of certainty and potential scope of knowledge is especially true under conditions of uncertainty, when the actual state of affairs is still ambiguous (Berkowitz and Zhengjia, 2016).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Between the technological hare and the journalistic tortoise: Minimization of knowledge claims in online news flashes

Rom

Reich

2017

Journalism

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A growing series of news platforms such as live blogging, tweeting, and push notifications are struggling with the extreme pressure of immediate reporting. The current study explores which strategies of knowledge acquisition and knowledge presentation journalists who operate immediate channels are using to address the mounting pressures and enhanced risk of error. It focuses on online news flashes that at least in the Israeli case enable systematic comparison of four types of output: routine and crisis news flashes and routine and crisis final items that follow them. Findings show that news flash editors develop special practices to acquire and present knowledge – the most prominent being minimization of knowledge claims. However, significantly higher use of modality, evidentiality, and source responses (measures for minimizing journalists’ knowledge claims) was found only in crisis flashes. This may suggest that journalists find themselves outside their epistemic comfort zone only under the convergence of crisis and immediacy. According to ‘inductive error’ theory, the studied websites act as responsible epistemic actors, who are so concerned about ‘false-positive’ errors (untrue publications) that they do not hesitate to make ‘false-negative’ ones (delaying publication, minimizing knowledge claims, and sharing them with third parties).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between the technological hare and the journalistic tortoise: Minimization of knowledge claims in online news flashes

Rom

Reich

2017

Journalism

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“…They both have a 'possibility culling' role. 34 For recent surveys of the relationship between belief and scientists' acceptance of their conclusions, see Miller (2014), Elgin (2017), (2020), Palmira (2020), and Dang and Bright (2021). 35 Staley and Cobb (2011: 476-9) also bridge mainstream epistemology and error statistical inference in philosophy of science, including reframing epistemology's internalism-externalism debate to better fit scientific practice.…”

Section: Safety and Sensitivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The safe, the sensitive, and the severely tested: a unified account

Gardiner

Zaharatos

2022

Synthese

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This essay presents a unified account of safety, sensitivity, and severe testing. S's belief is safe iff, roughly, S could not easily have falsely believed p, and S's belief is sensitive iff were p false S would not believe p. These two conditions are typically viewed as rivals but, we argue, they instead play symbiotic roles. Safety and sensitivity are both valuable epistemic conditions, and the relevant alternatives framework provides the scaffolding for their mutually supportive roles. The relevant alternatives condition holds that a belief is warranted only if the evidence rules out relevant error possibilities. The safety condition helps categorise relevant from irrelevant possibilities. The sensitivity condition captures 'ruling out'.Safety, sensitivity, and the relevant alternatives condition are typically presented as conditions on warranted belief or knowledge. But these properties, once generalised, help characterise other epistemic phenomena, including warranted inference, legal verdicts, scientific claims, reaching conclusions, addressing questions, warranted assertion, and the epistemic force of corroborating evidence.We introduce and explain Mayo's severe testing account of statistical inference. A hypothesis is severely tested to the extent it passes tests that probably would have found errors, were they present. We argue Mayo's account is fruitfully understood using the resulting relevant alternatives framework. Recasting Mayo's condition using the conceptual framework of contemporary epistemology helps forge fruitful connections between two research areas-philosophy of statistics and the analysis of knowledge-not currently in sufficient dialogue. The resulting union benefits both research areas.

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“…Natural resource scholars have interrogated adaptive management and found that time and again, adaptive management fails to deliver on its promises to balance uncertainty and action in natural resource management (Blumm and Paulsen, 2013;Volkman and McConnaha, 1993;Ruhl and Fischmann, 2011;Doremus, 2001). The problems with adaptive management, uncertainty, and risk become especially clear in the story of the intense litigation over the BiOps for endangered and threatened salmon recovery (Morse, 2012;Doremus, 2001;Blumm and Paulsen, 2013;Blumm, Thorson and Smith, 2006;McLain and Lee, 1996). Critics of NOAA Fisheries' efforts to implement adaptive management have dubbed it a 'watered-down' version of the principle that is more like 'ad hoc contingency planning' than 'learning by doing' (Ruhl and Fischmann 2011: 426).…”

Section: Court Refusal Of Adaptive Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-Epistemic Values in Adaptive Management: Framing Possibilities in the Legal Context of Endangered Columbia River Salmon

Hirsch¹,

Long²

2018

Environmental Values

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Courts have determined that adaptive management does not satisfy the Endangered Species Act's requirement to use the 'best available science'. This is due, in part, to the failure to recognise the role of non-epistemic values in science. We examine the role of values in the legal controversy over the scientific reports and adaptive management plans for endangered salmon in the Columbia River Basin. To do this, we employ philosophical concepts related to risk and uncertainty that demonstrate how non-epistemic values are internal to science. We describe how, because adaptive management is a method for dealing with inductive risk, by remaining flexible, responsive and adaptive in those circumstances where the costs of making a mistake are very high, it requires special attention to ensure that it remains useful. We conclude that, because non-epistemic values will inevitably influence the 'best available science', it is critical that they are clarified in any adaptive management planning so that we can ensure the salmon conservation that the ESA mandates. Fortunately, because adaptive management is iterative in nature and includes opportunities for engagement between policymakers and scientists, it enables clarification of non-epistemic values through making standards of evidence transparent, acknowledging aims and goals and dealing with uncertainty at the institutional level.

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Science, values, and pragmatic encroachment on knowledge

Cited by 15 publications

References 41 publications

Between the technological hare and the journalistic tortoise: Minimization of knowledge claims in online news flashes

Between the technological hare and the journalistic tortoise: Minimization of knowledge claims in online news flashes

The safe, the sensitive, and the severely tested: a unified account

Non-Epistemic Values in Adaptive Management: Framing Possibilities in the Legal Context of Endangered Columbia River Salmon

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