Dellsén, Finnur (2026) Collectivizing Public Scientific Testimony. [Preprint]

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Abstract

On many topics of common interest, there are multiple scientific experts who are more-or-less equally reliable as far as most laypeople can tell. In such situations, it would generally be a bad idea for those laypeople to form or update their opinions by deferring to the opinions of individual experts; rather, when possible, they should consider the more general distribution of opinions among all the experts. Building on this thought, this paper argues that scientific experts themselves should ideally not simply report their own opinions on topics within their expertise; rather, if possible, they should provide information about expert opinion distributions more generally, e.g. by communicating that a majority of their fellow experts take such-and-such position on a topic while the minority has a contrary view – even when they are themselves in the minority. I go on to trace some important implications of this argument, e.g. that scientific communities have an epistemic obligation to periodically gather data on expert opinion distributions regarding topics that are of interest to the general public.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Dellsén, Finnur finnurd@gmail.com 0000-0003-4989-4204
Additional Information:	Forthcoming in Episteme
Keywords:	expert testimony; scientific testimony; science reporting; opinion distributions
Subjects:	General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science
Depositing User:	Dr. Finnur Dellsén
Date Deposited:	19 May 2026 12:33
Last Modified:	19 May 2026 12:33
Item ID:	29692
Subjects:	General Issues > Science and Society General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science
Date:	2026
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/29692

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