Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label Philosophy of Science

The Social Fabric of Scientific Trust: A Review of Naomi Oreskes' Why Trust Science?

    The Social Fabric of Scientific Trust:  A Review of Naomi Oreskes' Why Trust Science ?   Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton   Recently, I have reconsidered a problem that emerged early in my career as a psychologist. By the time I was in graduate school, I began to hear clergy and other evangelicals attacking my profession. My graduate work was at the University of Missouri, was during the 1970s. The issue of psychology and Christianity was not discussed in my classes. Psychology is a science. We learned how to conduct experiments before we learned how to apply principles to the assessment and treatment of people struggling with various problems in living.   I soon learned from clergy and church friends of the low esteem they accorded my profession. Oreskes’ book offers some helpful thoughts on the general issue of trusting science and scientists. Her examples include psychology so, I found her ideas particularly helpful and think others interested in t...