260049 Masterclass and preparatory seminar: Fake research and harmful findings (GradS) (SoSe 2021)

The masterclass on fake research and harmful findings will take place in the period October 20-22, 2021. It is planned to be a live event with Janet Kourany (U. of Notre Dame), Inmaculada de Melo-Martín (Weill Cornell Medical College), Torsten Wilholt (Leibniz University Hannover), Lutz Wingert (ETH Zürich) and Martin Carrier (U. Bielefeld). The seminar introduces into the topical framework of the masterclass and provides an opportunity for deepening the understanding of the problems in question.

The pioneers of the Scientific Revolution in the early 1600s conceived the new science of the period as an undertaking in the service of the common good. By contrast, parts of present-day research are said to be detrimental in groundlessly undermining an evidentially backed and well-supported scientific consensus or to impair and hurt social groups. Take climate change denialists who attempt to undercut well-established knowledge about threats to humankind by sticking to received political and economic interests. Or think of research on the genetic basis of untreatable diseases that would achieve nothing but obfuscate the lives of the people afflicted. Such research may contribute to preventing urgent political action or make people suffer unnecessarily and without any benefit.
Such issues pose epistemic and moral challenges. The epistemic challenge is whether it is advisable to seek to identify fake science and ostracize the relevant approaches or, alternatively, whether the adverse side-effects possibly tied up with such attempts would create more harm than good. After all, the misidentification of such fake accounts would lead to the unfavorable suppression of scientific debate. In moral respect, blacklisting certain research undertakings might conflict with the freedom of research. Moreover, hurt feelings may not be a sufficient reason for abandonnig a research endeavor.
The 2021 masterclass in philosophy differs from its predecessors in implementing a controversial scheme. Both the epistemic and the moral dimension will be addressed in contrasting ways. The parties involved will defend and criticize the appropriateness of ruling out certain approaches right away as epistemically unsound and morally defective.