| agreement | item | prompt |
|---|---|---|
| top 5 | ||
| 98% | aims.1 | A primary aim of science is to improve our knowledge and understanding of the world. |
| 90% | aims.2 | A primary aim of science is to improve our understanding of threats to human health and the environment. |
| 87% | coi.2 | Special interests can always find a scientist-for-hire who will support their point of view. |
| 86% | stdpt | Scientists from marginalized backgrounds can provide valuable insights that other scientists are likely to miss. |
| 79% | vfi.1 | The evaluation and acceptance of scientific results must not be influenced by social and ethical values. |
| bottom 5 | ||
| 35% | vfi.2 | Scientists do not use imagination or creativity because doing so interferes with objectivity. |
| 35% | fallible.2 | When a scientific theory changes or is revised, it means that the research that went into it initially was flawed. |
| 27% | consensus.1 | The consensus of the scientific community is based on social status and prestige rather than evidence. |
| 8% | fallible.1 | Once a scientific theory has been established, it is never changed. |
| 6% | consensus.2 | Scientists never disagree with each other about the answers to scientific questions. |
Developing a Values in Science Scale (VISS)
Dan Hicks (they/them), Emilio Lobato (he/him),
Cosmo Campbell, Joseph Dad (he/him)
Cosmo Campbell, Joseph Dad (he/him)
University of California, Merced
values-in-science-scale.netlify.app
Controversy and public understanding of science
Explaining public scientific controversies
HPSTSers often explain controversies by appeal to public views on science, values, and policy issues
- “The scientific method” (Mercer 2016; John 2017)
- Objectivity & value-free ideal [VFI] (Fernández Pinto and Hicks 2019; Kovaka 2021)
- Consensus and dissent (Oreskes 2004; Cook et al. 2013; John 2017; Myers et al. 2021)
- Paternalism/technocracy/elitism
(Wynne 1989; Jordan, Gust, and Scheman 2011; Largent 2012; Navin 2015; Goldenberg 2021) - Conflicts of interest, manufacturing doubt or certainty
(Elliott and Resnik 2014; Fernandez Pinto 2020; Goldenberg 2021) - Science’s historical and/or contemporary role in oppression
(Scheman 2001; Washington 2008; McHugh 2011; Nelson 2011; Grasswick 2018; Goldenberg 2021)
But do publics actually hold these views?
(As a gross generalization)
- Historians focus on actions of scientists or merchants of doubt
- Sociologists look at particular case studies that don’t necessarily generalize to public at large
- Philosophers don’t offer empirical evidence at all
Developing a Values in Science Scale (VISS)
VISS items
19 items, drawing especially on the science, values, and policy literature
Aims of science
Conflicts of interest
Consensus
Fallibilism
Inductive risk
Non-subjectivity
Pluralism
Standpoint theory
Value-free ideal
Item example
- vfi.1
- The evaluation and acceptance of scientific results must not be influenced by social and ethical values.
- 7-step Likert scale
- “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”
VISS project
- Collaboration between a philosopher of science (Dan) and a cognitive scientist (Emilio)
- Fall 2021: initial development of 36-item quantitative scale
- January 2024: Cosmo and Joseph, both philosophy majors, brought on as USRs
- March 2024: focus on 19 items, qualitative surveys to refine wording
- April 2024
- Validation study
- 502 US adults via Prolific
- VISS + measures of trust in science, science literacy, right-wing authoritarianism
VISS agreement and disagreement
Agreement/disagreement
Agreement/disagreement:
Top & bottom 5
Agreement/disagreement:
Interpretation
In the US, members of the public generally
- are fallibilists (Upshur and Goldenberg 2020)
- recognize both epistemically-based consensus (Miller 2013) and legitimate scientific disagreement (Longino 1990; Melo-Martín and Intemann 2018)
- recognize the influence of “special interests”
(Fernández Pinto 2017; Holman and Bruner 2017)
- think science has both epistemic and practical aims (Hicks 2022)
- agree with a version of standpoint’s epistemic advantage thesis (Crasnow 2014)
- nevertheless, accept VFI
VFI and some critiques
Two statements of VFI
- nonsubj.1
- When analyzing data, scientists should let the data speak for itself rather than offering their own interpretation.
- vfi.1
- The evaluation and acceptance of scientific results must not be influenced by social and ethical values.
Four arguments against VFI
- aims.2
- A primary aim of science is to improve our understanding of threats to human health and the environment.
- ir
- Scientists should be more cautious about accepting a hypothesis when doing so could have serious social consequences.
- stdpt
- Scientists from marginalized backgrounds can provide valuable insights that other scientists are likely to miss.
- value.conflict
- When scientific findings conflict with my core values, it’s appropriate to be especially skeptical.
VFI and some critiques
VFI and some critiques: Interpretation
- No correlation between statements of VFI and critiques
- Not:
Public is irrational, inconsistent, etc. - Rather: Dewey model
- Cultural “scripts,” habitual modes of thought (Dewey [1922] 2008)
- “Activated” in particular cases for interpretation or meaning-making (Halpern and Elliott 2022)
- So long as two “scripts” aren’t “activated” in the same context in a way that brings them into conflict, there’s no problematic situation and thus no reason to try to reconcile them (Dewey [1936] 2008; Brown 2020).
VFI items and trust
Measures of generalized trust in science
- Credibility of Science Scale (Hartman et al. 2017)
- Variation on “confidence in institutions” questions from the General Social Survey (https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/variables/458/vshow)
- Pew Research Center “effect of science on society”
(https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/11/14/views-on-the-impact-of-science-on-society/) - Scientism scale (Lukić and Žeželj 2023)
VFI items and trust
VFI items and trust
- For both measures, median trust in science is moderately high
- None of the VFI items is a strong predictor of trust
- Heterogeneity of correlations:
some positive, some negative, vfi.1 is almost perfectly flat - We plan to analyze this heterogeneity using exploratory causal methods
Future work
Future work
- VFI & testing “Deweyan model”
- Relationship between VFI items and politics
VISS items in the context of
- Dueling expert scenarios
- Trust in science-policy institutions (EPA) rather than individual scientists or “science” (Brown 2022)
- Policy support
Developing a Values in Science Scale (VISS)
Dan Hicks (they/them), Emilio Lobato (he/him),
Cosmo Campbell, Joseph Dad (he/him)
Cosmo Campbell, Joseph Dad (he/him)
University of California, Merced
values-in-science-scale.netlify.app
Prompts
- aims.1
- A primary aim of science is to improve our knowledge and understanding of the world.
- aims.2
- A primary aim of science is to improve our understanding of threats to human health and the environment.
- aims.3
- A primary aim of science is to stimulate economic growth with new technology.
- coi.1
- Scientists will report conclusions that they think will get them more funding even if the data does not fully support that conclusion.
- coi.2
- Special interests can always find a scientist-for-hire who will support their point of view.
- consensus.1
- The consensus of the scientific community is based on social status and prestige rather than evidence.
- consensus.2
- Scientists never disagree with each other about the answers to scientific questions.
- fallible.1
- Once a scientific theory has been established, it is never changed.
- fallible.2
- When a scientific theory changes or is revised, it means that the research that went into it initially was flawed.
- ir
- Scientists should be more cautious about accepting a hypothesis when doing so could have serious social consequences.
- nonsubj.1
- When analyzing data, scientists should let the data speak for itself rather than offering their own interpretation.
- nonsubj.2
- Good scientific research is always free of assumptions and speculation.
- pluralism.1
- Scientific investigations always require laboratory experiments.
- pluralism.3
- All scientists use the same strict requirements for determining when empirical data confirms a tested hypothesis.
- stdpt
- Scientists from marginalized backgrounds can provide valuable insights that other scientists are likely to miss.
- value.conflict
- When scientific findings conflict with my core values, it’s appropriate to be especially skeptical.
- vfi.1
- The evaluation and acceptance of scientific results must not be influenced by social and ethical values.
- vfi.2
- Scientists do not use imagination or creativity because doing so interferes with objectivity.
- wait.policy
- Public policy should wait until all relevant scientific questions have been settled.
References
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Developing a Values in Science Scale (VISS) Dan Hicks (they/them), Emilio Lobato (he/him), Cosmo Campbell, Joseph Dad (he/him) University of California, Merced values-in-science-scale.netlify.app