260075 Postponed to Winter Term 2020/21 - Fake Research and Harmful Findings: When Science does Damage (Masterclass in Philosophy and Preparation Course) (GradS) (SoSe 2020)

Die Masterclass wird vom 17.6-19.6. stattfinden.

Speakers:
Janet Kourany (U. of Notre Dame)
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín (Weill Cornell Medical College)
Martin Carrier (Bielefeld University)
Torsten Wilholt (Leibniz-University Hannover)
Lutz Wingert (ETH Zurich)

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 2020 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.