BOOK REVIEW

Anna Leuschner: Die Glaubwurdigkeitder Wissenschaft. Eine wissenschafts- underkenntnistheoretische Analyse am Beispielder Klimaforschung

Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2012, 227 pp, €28.80,ISBN: 978-3-8376-1974-4

Nicola Moßner

Published online: 14 December 2013� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Anna Leuschner presents an interesting suggestion on how to apply theoretical approaches

from the domain of social epistemology, philosophy of science and ethics in science to

current debates about climate change. The main problem she takes into consideration is the

relation between an apparent inevitability of values in science and the researcher’s cred-

ibility—most of all with regard to public presentations of research results and the evalu-

ation of divergent expert opinions by laymen. The starting point for her analysis is the

assumption that public debates about credibility affect scientific research whenever epi-

stemic uncertainty meets political, moral, social or economic interests (2).

In the first part of the book (Knowledge and Belief), Leuschner briefly presents the

debate about knowledge by testimony. Here she introduces the problem of credibility and

then focuses on Alvin Goldman’s account of how a layman can decide between two

conflicting expert opinions, without becoming an expert himself. This topic is then put into

context in her second chapter (The Credibility of Science), where Leuschner connects

Goldman’s more general assumptions with the concrete problem of how to discern experts

in climate science. She discusses the problem of credibility both along the lines of

assessments amongst peers and as Goldman does by starting from a layman’s perspective.

By presenting both kinds of evaluation, Leuschner shows that science does not take place

in an ideal, value-free environment. Ultimately, climate scientists have to make up their

mind about either being honest and unveiling their interests and values bolstering their

decisions and advice or following the ideal and suppressing them. As Leuschner is of the

opinion that the latter is simply not an alternative, her next step is to analyse how we can

deal with different values in science leading to the promotion of different methods or

theories—i.e. with pluralism in science. Hence, in her third chapter (Pluralism as a

Solution?) she retraces the debate between Philip Kitcher and Helen Longino on this topic

to find a solution for the above-mentioned problem. In the end, she supports Kitcher’s

recent suggestion of establishing mediating deliberators at the level between science and

the public to ensure, on the one hand, pluralism in the scientific domain and, on the other

N. Moßner (&)Philosophisches Institut, RWTH Aachen, 52062 Aachen, Germanye-mail: nicola.moessner@rwth-aachen.de

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J Gen Philos Sci (2013) 44:391–395DOI 10.1007/s10838-013-9235-3

hand, to help laymen in their decision on whom to trust in science. The practical relevance

of these topics is shown in the fourth chapter (The Crisis of Credibility of Climate Science).

Here she explains the crisis of reliability in the debate about climate science and, finally

(Conclusion), she offers a short summary of her main points.

Leuschner rather briefly deals with the debate about knowledge by testimony—i.e. the

question of which conditions must be met to obtain knowledge through the words of others.

She presents the two main classical approaches (reductionism and anti-reductionism),

pointing out that at the heart of the debate lies the issue of the testifier’s credibility (his

sincerity and competence with regard to the proposition testified). This is also the issue

Leuschner aims at. She leaves aside the difficulties of the general debate in social epis-

temology and turns her attention directly to the division of epistemic labour in science

(18ff.). In this context, Leuschner points out that the problem of testimonial knowledge

becomes especially relevant in relation to complex research areas where a diversity of

methods and interdisciplinary work is required (ibid.). Of course, testimonial knowledge

plays a crucial role here; however, stating that the social influence is a prevailing phe-

nomenon of only these contexts seems to be an inadequate restriction. Thomas Bartelborth

explains the concept of the division of epistemic labour in a more general sense (see

Bartelborth 1996, 70ff.). Most of the data used by a scientist are not the product of his own

research but are produced by colleagues and distributed in the community via different

forms of publications. The scientist has to rely on these data to justify his own hypotheses

and discoveries. This also means that a precondition for scientific progress consists in our

epistemically relying on others. Denying the possibility of acquiring knowledge through

his colleagues’ words would also mean that each scientist would always have to develop

the whole scientific field right from scratch. Therefore, as a finite being with restricted

resources in time and limited cognitive abilities he would never be able to make a sub-

stantial new contribution in a more sophisticated domain. Consequently, our epistemic

reliance on others accompanies the scientist’s work all the time.

Having acknowledged this wide-ranging testimonial dependency in science, two

dimensions can be considered here, namely, what constitutes the trust between peers in this

context (18f.), and what are the reasons that epistemically justify a layman in his belief that

he can rely on a scientist’s word. This last aspect becomes even more problematic if the

layman is confronted with divergent expert opinions (on the wide-ranging topic of

expertise in science see also Selinger and Crease 2006). How, then, can a layman decide

which expert he should trust without himself becoming an expert in the relevant domain?

Here Leuschner includes Alvin Goldman’s well-known proposal (23; for a critical dis-

cussion of Goldman’s concept of experts see Scholz 2009) and afterwards critically dis-

cusses his five suggested indications a layman can deploy to evaluate the expert’s assertion.

As Leuschner uses the debate about testimony solely as an introduction to the more

specific problem of how to evaluate expert opinions, her presentation is rather brief.

Consequently, readers who are not familiar with the debate are somehow forced to plunge

in at the deep end by her description of the different positions. In contrast, theorists with a

background in social epistemology might be slightly disappointed about her choice of

authors as some other interesting voices could have been heard (see e.g. Kusch and Lipton

2002). For example, Leuschner briefly mentions Elizabeth Fricker, but wrongly categorises

her as a local credulist, i.e. an anti-reductionist (13, fn. 16), whereas Fricker describes her

own approach as a local reductionist (see Fricker 1994, 133). Anyway, the more important

point is that she is also concerned with the question of how to discern an expert in science

(see Fricker 2006) and what the basis for trust in science can be (see Fricker 2002). In this

context, Fricker emphasises the scientist’s social role, his membership of a certain

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community guided by commonly shared norms and institutionalised mechanisms to

sanction fraud etc. Hence, she is of the opinion that testimonial beliefs in science can be

supported by empirical warrant with regard to the scientist’s social status (see ibid., 382f.).

It would have been interesting to compare Fricker’s local reductionist account for entitled

trust in science with John Hardwig’s vote for blind trust as the sole possible basis for the

division of epistemic labour in science (32).

Moreover, why does Leuschner regard trustworthiness as a non-epistemic criterion

(31)? She mentions that aspects such as moral or political beliefs, biases and interests etc.

become important in establishing the role of a trustworthy testifier. On the one hand, this

point seems clear enough, but on the other hand, it is hard to understand why credibility

(i.e. the speaker’s honesty and competence)—also liable to such influences—is, without

saying, regarded as an epistemic criterion in the whole debate. At least, to maintain her

thesis Leuschner should have said something about the distinction between credibility and

trustworthiness (see e.g. Bernd Lahno’s analysis of the concept of trust, 2002; his key ideas

were published in English in 2001). Furthermore, there are some fruitful approaches to

establishing the attitude of trust as the central characteristic of the epistemic relation

between speaker and hearer (see Paul Faulkner 2011) and, thereby, putting the concept of

trust at the very heart of the epistemology of testimony.

In the second chapter, the author fleshes out the initially highlighted difficulty in

evaluating the testifier’s credibility with regard to the problems in climate science. Here

she makes a distinction between credibility evaluations amongst peers and between layman

and experts (36). In the latter context, she puts forward Martin Carrier’s proposal of taking

into account the fact that experts also act in the public domain and, therefore, carry

responsibility for what they say and do (37). With regard to these scientists, Carrier

introduces the concept of expert intellectuals, which Leuschner uses throughout the rest of

her book.

The author then approaches the topic of climate scientists distributing their opinions via

mass media. Leuschner here presents an interesting analysis of this third party role in the

initial expert-to-novice problem (39ff.). However, to incorporate another player in the team

also means that laymen not only have to evaluate the apparent expert but also the media for

their credibility. Consequently, Leuschner calls for a method to develop and establish a

more critical public awareness of the media’s production and distribution of information

(45). The concept that fills the gap, she highlights here, is media literacy. This concept can

indeed be regarded as an essential part of the background knowledge relevant in the

context of knowledge by testimony (see Moßner 2010, ch. 5). Providing laymen with this

kind of knowledge may also help them to better estimate the significance of consent or

dissent between peers—situations that are often dramatised by the media (47ff.).

But it is not only the media that are responsible for shaping and also for distorting public

opinion about climate science. Politics and lobbyism play their part, too (52ff.). Moreover,

the dependency relation is mutual, as scientists take part in policy counselling. Especially

in climate science, research results become crucial cornerstones for political decisions.

Hence, political and scientific questions cannot be easily separated (61f.). And here we are

back again with the concept of expert intellectuals (62ff.). Acting in the public domain of

media and politics, scientists are not only responsible for correctly presenting their research

results but also with regard to political and moral affairs (67).

In the following, Leuschner presents the difficulties of the pathological sciences and of

the theory-ladenness of observation as explanations for disagreement within the scientific

community (83ff.). Additional insecurity is contributed by the problem of

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underdetermination (93ff.). Applying these aspects to climate science opens the door for

different sceptical approaches (106ff.).

Finally, the author approaches the topic of values in science. She cites Richard Rudner,

who has argued that the acceptance of a hypothesis necessarily implies value judgements

as the scientist always has to decide what degree of confirmation he considers to be

sufficient in what context and what constitutes this degree (111f.). And precisely at this

point, non-epistemic aspects might tip the scales (119). But what seems to be a concession

to scientific practices quickly becomes a sticking point. On the one hand, especially in

climate science, there seems to be no alternative to including non-epistemic considerations

in the scientist’s decision making, on the other hand, the ideal the scientists are still

confronted with is that of a value-free science (125).

As a solution to this problem, Leuschner discusses the proposal of pluralism put forward

by Helen Longino and Philip Kitcher, whose debate on the topic she presents in detail in

her third chapter. The author’s aim is twofold here. On the one hand, she offers an

illuminating description of each particular position. On the other hand, she explains the

step-by-step convergence of the two theories in the course of the discussion. Because of

this particularisation the reader, unfortunately, becomes slightly lost about the aims of

Leuschner’s reason why this discussion is integrated in such a detail. Some connecting

remarks would have been helpful in this context.

In a nutshell, Longino’s contextual empiricism (132) is contrasted with Kitcher’s sci-

entific realism (136ff.). Leuschner shows the convergence of the two theories, ending in

both defending a pluralistic position combined with the requirement of general standards

(169). The kind of pluralism put forward here concerns values and interests with regard to

contexts of theory choice and the evaluation of models, methods and valuation standards,

and methodological and theoretical pluralism in general research contexts (169ff.). What

about the promised solution then? Obviously, Leuschner sides with Kitcher’s approach

here, who suggests establishing some mediating, deliberating instances between science

and the public to help the latter find their experts and decide whom to trust, although a

variety of values and interests is present in the scientific domain.

In her fourth chapter, the author then applies the theoretical considerations put forward

in Kitcher and Longino’s converged approach to the debate about global warming. She

describes the mistake concerning the correct scale of the melting Himalaya glacier pub-

lished in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change, 179ff.) and its consequences (181ff.). She, thereby, addresses the problem of

credibility, theoretically elaborated in chapter one and two, on a practical level, namely, for

climate scientists confronted with a loss of credibility in public as a result of the IPCC

mistake. Furthermore, she also points out that the IPCC can be understood as an example

of Kitcher’s mediating deliberators. Accordingly, she presents a practical instance of the

solution discussed in chapter three. Leuschner’s case study, however, does not only vividly

illustrate the theoretical considerations presented in her book so far, it also reveals a weak

point in the presented solution. Even though the IPCC can be understood as a mediating

instance, the problems caused by pluralism in the scientific domain are not cancelled out by

it. Whereas Kitcher seems to suggest that at the mediating level consensus can and has to

be established, in contrast to the free market of ideas in the scientific realm, the example

shows that this is not the case. Instead of removing doubts, the IPCC itself is confronted

with the problem of credibility due to the publication of incorrect data concerning the

melting of the glacier (185f.). Additionally, Leuschner highlights the fact that there is not

much epistemic progress in climate science, which will always be a source of climate

scepticism (187ff.). The urgency of the problem, however, allows for no further delay.

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Consequently, Leuschner argues that in such a case empirical adequateness is all we can

hope for (192). Truth would be too ambitious a goal. In this respect Leuschner diverges

from Kitcher’s proposal and sides with Longino.

Without saying, Leuschner presents an ambitious project in her book, as she tries to

combine accounts from a variety of different philosophical fields such as the debates about

testimony, experts, values in science, underdetermination of theories, theory-ladenness and

many more (197). Because of the richness of detail in her presentation, what is missing in

her book is summaries of crucial points to help the reader keep track of her line of

reasoning. Nonetheless, her well-written and interesting book is recommended to everyone

who wants to get an impression of the complexity of the socially important, politically

pressing and scientifically challenging debate about climate change and the struggle of

philosophers of science to make proposals for solving this problem.

References

Bartelborth, T. (1996). Begrundungsstrategien—Ein Weg durch die analytische Erkenntnistheorie. Berlin:Akademie Verlag.

Faulkner, P. (2011). Knowledge on trust. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Fricker, E. (1994). Against gullibility. In B. K. Matilal & A. Chakrabarti (Eds.), Knowing from words:

Western and Indian philosophical analysis of understanding and testimony (pp. 125–161). Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic.

Fricker, E. (2002). Trusting others in the sciences: a priori or empirical warrant? In Studies in History andPhilosophy of Science, 33, 373–383.

Fricker, E. (2006). Testimony and epistemic autonomy. In J. Lackey & E. Sosa (Eds.), The epistemology oftestimony (pp. 225–250). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Kusch, M. & Lipton, P. (Eds). (2002). Studies in history and philosophy of science. Special Issue onTestimony, 33(2), 209–423.

Lahno, B. (2001). On the emotional character of trust. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 4(2), 171–189.Lahno, B. (2002). Der Begriff des Vertrauens. Paderborn: Mentis Verlag.Moßner, N. (2010). Wissen aus dem Zeugnis anderer—der Sonderfall medialer Berichterstattung. Pader-

born: Mentis Verlag.Scholz, O. R. (2009). Experts: What they are and how we recognize them—A discussion of Alvin Gold-

man’s views. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 79(1), 187–205.Selinger, E. & Crease, R. P. (Eds.). (2006). The philosophy of expertise. New York: Columbia University

Press.

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