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Navigating dissent by managing value judgments: the case of Lyme disease

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Abstract

Recent philosophical literature has highlighted the complexities of handling dissent in science. On one hand, scientific dissent can be very harmful, as when “merchants of doubt” strategically appeal to dissent in order to undermine important environmental and public-health initiatives. On the other hand, scientific dissent can also be beneficial when it helps to promote scientific objectivity, progress, and public engagement. Some authors have responded to this tension by suggesting criteria for distinguishing normatively appropriate and inappropriate dissent, while other authors have suggested that it is more fruitful to alter the social context in which science operates in order to alleviate the negative effects of dissent over the long term. This paper proposes another approach that may be helpful for managing particularly challenging cases of scientific dissent. It argues that instances of scientific dissent often incorporate debates over value judgments, so many difficult cases of dissent can be navigated by: (1) identifying and highlighting those value judgments; and (2) managing those value judgments by drawing strategies from the extensive literature on values and science. The paper illustrates this approach by examining a case study of dissent over the treatment of long-term symptoms associated with Lyme disease.

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Notes

  1. Throughout this paper, I will typically refer to “appropriate” and “inappropriate” dissent rather than using Biddle and Leuschner’s language of “epistemically detrimental” dissent. I think it is at least possible that dissent could be inappropriate for reasons other than being epistemically detrimental, and dissent could potentially be appropriate in some cases even if it is epistemically detrimental. See also de Melo-Martín and Intemann’s (2018) concept of “normatively inappropriate dissent.”

  2. See https://www.hhs.gov/ash/advisory-committees/tickbornedisease/index.html.

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Acknowledgements

I am very grateful for excellent suggestions I received on this paper from two anonymous reviewers for this journal. I also received helpful feedback from audiences at the workshop on Values in Science and Political Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, the workshop on Engaging Ethics and Epistemology of Science at Leibniz Universität Hannover, the workshop on The Legacy of the Value-Free Ideal of Science at Uppsala University, and a reading group based at the Université de Montréal and the University of Calgary. Finally, I thank Philippe Stamenkovic and Adam Tamas Tuboly for their invitation to contribute to this collection of articles.

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  1. Lyman Briggs College, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 35E Holmes Hall, 919 E. Shaw Ln., East Lansing, MI, 48825, USA

    Kevin C. Elliott

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The author has received compensation for a lecture on ethics for the Chlorine Institute, an industry trade association focused on safety and sustainability in the chlor-alkali industry. The author acknowledges that this could possibly affect his judgment about how to handle dissent in science, specifically in cases where industry is involved.

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Elliott, K.C. Navigating dissent by managing value judgments: the case of Lyme disease. Synthese 202, 134 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04368-z

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