1 <strong>Topic I. Importance to Society: Decisions and…
Topic I. Role of Science in a Democracy
- When is science relevant? The many uses of a scientific approach.
- What is the role of scientific expertise in a democracy? Where does the authority of science come from? Where does the authority of democratic decision-making come from?
- Topic 1 introduces the course, beginning with the question of when science or scientific reasoning is relevant. We begin by distinguishing facts and values, and using this distinction to consider the affordances and limitations of scientific inquiry and expertise for personal and political decision-making. These opening questions will return at the end of the semester, when we consider processes for effectively integrating epistocratic (expertise-based) and democratic input, in light of the capacities and limitations of scientific practice and ordinary citizens which will have been examined throughout the course.
- Addressing the Question: How should we use science to make better decisions?
- Relevant to: Philosophical Underpinnings
TOPIC RESOURCES
EXAMPLES
- Exemplary Quotes
- “But the efficacy of wearing a bicycle helmet is a simple factual question that we should be able to get an answer for.”
- “It was embarrassing to discover how often my choice in the grocery store was determined by something irrelevant to the actual contents of the item.”
- Cautionary Quotes: Mistakes, Misconceptions, & Misunderstandings
- Commonest difficulty is in distinguishing facts and values in fraught real-world contexts, when not reminded to do so. E.g., students' deference to scientists for questions is predicted by the ideological fraughtness of the topic, not whether it is a question of fact or value.
- “What could science possibly have to tell us about love!”
- "Science can't tell us anything about happiness, because people don't agree about what makes us happy, anyway."
- "I think democracy is always better, because people know what they want and everyone deserves to try to get what they want. Everyone has their own facts, and people should be allowed to pursue their vision of the world without interference from scientists."
- "I think we should always just defer to experts on everything, because experts know what's best for everyone and regular people don't have time to learn that much or think that hard anyway."
- "Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?" - Oliver Heaviside
- Mistaking "claim of fact" for "claim of value" due to lack of evidence or debate around the topic.
LEARNING GOALS
- A. ATTITUDES
- Recognize the need to distinguish facts from values in political and everyday decision-making
- B. CONCEPT ACQUISITION
- Facts vs. Values
- a. Facts: Objectively true claims about reality. Everything that is the case. What is, descriptively, including spatial relations, causal relations, attributes of objects, etc.
- b. Values: What is of value, important, of worth. Oughts, shoulds, etcs.
- Democracy vs. Epistocracy
- a. Democracy: A system of government wherein a society’s citizens have more or less equal input into policies.
- b. Epistocracy: A system of government wherein a particular subset of a society—privileged by their education or other markers of expertise—decides policies.
- Scientific expertise has utility for political decision-making.
- Social and behavioral aspects of the world can be approached scientifically and, therefore, have relevant experts.
- C. CONCEPT APPLICATION
- Facts vs. Values
- a. Distinguish between facts and values in public debates and everyday decision-making.
- b. Identify ways in which facts and values are intertwined in public debates and everyday decision-making.
- c. Recognize when values determine which facts are viewed as relevant.
- d. Use distinction between facts and values to identify appropriate source(s) of authority in decision-making.
- Justify when it is appropriate for everyone to have a vote.
- Justify when it is appropriate for science to have a role in democratic decision-making and explain what that role should be.
- Democracy vs. Epistocracy.
- a. Explain arguments for each.
- b. Describe tension between the claims of the two.
- c. Appeal to scientific expertise (including in the social and behavioral sciences) for political decision-making.
- d. Identify democratic and epistocratic aspects of real governments.
CLASS ELEMENTS
- Suggested Readings & Reading Questions
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- Reading Question: What are the major limitations of democracy? What are its affordances (that is, what functions or goals can it serve well)?
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- Clicker Questions
- You're on a hike in Marin with your friends and you black out. Next thing you know, you're in an ambulance racing towards the hospital. When you arrive at the hospital, the doctors tell you that one of two things is wrong with you, and they aren't certain which. Either (1.) You are going to die in the next few hours unless you agree to an invasive, dangerous heart surgery, or (2.) You'll probably be fine with some medication, and there's plenty of time to get more tests over the next few days. How do you decide whether to get the heart surgery or take the medication?
- a. Go with the judgment of the most experienced doctors at the hospital.
- b. Get everyone in the hospital, patients, visitors, doctors, nurses, janitors, and your worried friends, to vote on 1 or 2, and go with the majority vote.
- You're the school president at a new school, and you are in charge of setting up the process to choose a school mascot. Students have already proposed a list of twenty possibilities. Which is the best way to make this choice?
- a. Invite in an external historian of school mascots to choose, since they are an expert.
- b. Ask the teachers and administrators to vote, since they know more than the students.
- c. Give one vote token to every person in the school, teachers and students, and go with the most popular.
- Discuss: What's the difference between questions 1 (what to do about a heart attack) and 2 (how to choose a school mascot)?
- If you had to choose between living in a pure democracy or a pure epistocracy, which would you choose?
- A. Democracy
- B. Epistocracy
- Discussion Questions
- Why did you give the answer you did to the clicker question (better to live in a pure democracy or a pure epistocracy)? What are the costs of your choice?
- In what ways is the current US political system epistocratic and democratic?
- If you could create a government from scratch, to what extent and in what way would it be epistocratic vs. democratic? Why?
- How would your system come to a decision on a healthcare plan?
- Utopias:
- A. Imagine a utopia in which democracy functioned optimally (as well as it conceivably could). What would such a society be like? How is it different from our society? How hard would it be to bring about such a society?
- B. Now imagine a utopia in which epistocracy functioned optimally. What would this society be like? How realistic is it?
- C. Would you prefer to live in the democratic utopia or the epistocratic utopia? Why?
- How is disagreement about matters of fact different from disagreement about matters of value? How does disagreement about each typically play out? Why are they different?
- Class Exercises
- Practice Problems
- Which of the following is a statement of facts and which of value? Discuss.
- Socrates is mortal. (F)
- Everyone should learn a little logic. (V)
- America is the greatest country on earth. (V, unless "great" is interpreted to mean "powerful," in which case F could be argued.)
- Dogs have four legs. (F)
- Trout are the best fish. (V)
- Everybody loves trout. (F, albeit false)
- Opera is valuable to society. (V)
- Soap operas affect social norms. (F)
- Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others. (V)
- Capital punishment is morally permissible. (V)
- Capital punishment is an effective deterrent for crime. (F, albeit debatable)
- We do not protect the oceans well enough. (V, although very easy to argue on the basis of self-interest)
- Homework
- Pre-Course Survey
- Data Science Applications:
- Hard to figure out the data science elements