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When Expert Disagreement Supports the Consensus

Dellsén, Finnur (2018) When Expert Disagreement Supports the Consensus. [Preprint]

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Abstract

It is often suggested that disagreement among scientific experts is a reason not to trust those experts, even about matters on which they are in agreement. In direct opposition to this view, I argue here that the very fact that there is disagreement among experts on a given issue provides a positive reason for non-experts to trust that the experts really are justified in their attitudes towards consensus theories. I show how this line of thought can be spelled out in three distinct frameworks for non-deductive reasoning, viz. Bayesian Confirmation Theory, Inference to the Best Explanation, and Inferential Robustness Analysis.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Dellsén, Finnurfinnurd@gmail.com0000-0003-4989-4204
Additional Information: Published in Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Keywords: expert disagreement, scientific consensus, epistemic diversity, trust in science
Subjects: General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
General Issues > Rhetoric of Science
General Issues > Science and Society
Depositing User: Dr. Finnur Dellsén
Date Deposited: 02 Jan 2019 00:17
Last Modified: 02 Jan 2019 00:17
Item ID: 15534
Official URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00048...
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.1080/00048402.2017.1298636
Subjects: General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
General Issues > Rhetoric of Science
General Issues > Science and Society
Date: 2018
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15534

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