Trust, Expert Opinion, and Policy

August 31, 2017 - September 2, 2017
School of Philosophy, University College Dublin

O'Brien Centre
Dublin D4
Ireland

This will be an accessible event, including organized related activities

View the Call For Papers

Sponsor(s):

  • Irish Research Council
  • UCD Institute for Discovery
  • "The Trinity of Policy-Making"
  • UCD School of Philosophy

Speakers:

Patrick Honohan
Trinity College Dublin
Onora O'Neill
University of Cambridge
Susan Owens
University of Cambridge

Organisers:

Maria Baghramian
University College Dublin
Luke Drury
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

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Trust, Expert Opinion and Policy

A multidisciplinary conference investigating questions of trust in and the trustworthiness of expert opinion

O’Brien Science Centre

University College Dublin

August 31-September 2, 2017

The conference is organised by Professor Maria Baghramian (School of Philosophy, University College Dublin) and Professor Luke Drury (School of Cosmic Physics, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) as part of their Irish Research Council Project

When Experts Disagree

 

Conference Theme

 Trust is the glue that binds our social interactions. Much of our social life, particularly in technologically advanced societies, is made possible through multi-level divisions of cognitive labour. Such divisions, in turn, lead to reliance, on part of both individuals and policy makers, on the testimony of trained experts in various fields. Indeed, a high level of trust in expert opinion is necessary for the effectiveness of this division of cognitive labour, even if such trust can never be unquestioning. A marked feature of recent political upheavals in Europe and the US is a breakdown of trust in experts. The conference aims to contribute to the understanding of the nature of trust and its connections with the trustworthiness of experts.

The conference explores the following topics

The nature and appropriate scope of epistemic trust

Sources and conditions of trust and trustworthiness

The question of trust in economics

The role of trust in science

The question of trust in climate science

The breakdown of trust in expert opinion and its impact

The rationality of trust and its limits

The ethics of trust

The role of media

Trusting people vs. trusting institutions

Key Note Speakers

Onora O’Neill (University of Cambridge, Philosophy)

Susan Owens (University of Cambridge, Environment and Policy)

Patrick Honohan (Trinity College Dublin, Economics)

 Invited Panel Speakers

Gloria Origgi (Institut Jean Nicod, Philosophy)

Etienne Parizot (Paris Diderot University, Astrophysics)

W.G. van der Meer (University of Amsterdam, Politics)

Judith Simon (University of Hamburg, Philosophy)

J. Adam Carter (Glasgow, Philosophy)

Wendy Parker (University of Durham, Philosophy, Climate Policy)

Rafael Alves Batista (University of Oxford, Astrophysics)

Attracta Ingram (University College Dublin, Political Theory)

Don Ross (University College Cork, Economics, Philosophy)

Imelda Maher (University College Dublin, Law)

Shane Bergin (University College Dublin, Science Education)

  

Programme

Thursday August 31

 

 

9.00-9.30 Registration and Welcome. O’Brien Centre

 Parallel Session 1. The Nature of Trust. Lynch Theater

·      9.30-10.00 Aisling Crean (University of Glasgow) “What do reactive attitudes tell us about trust?”

·      10.00-10.30 Jaime Edwards (University of Chicago) “Just Because They Say It Doesn’t Make It So: On Group Consensus”

·      10.30-11.00Anna Bortolan (UCD) “Self-trust and Epistemic Experience”

·      11.00-11.30 Coffee Break

·      11.30-12.00 Katherine O’Donnell (UCD) “Trust, Mistrust and Distrust: the Role of the Future in Gaining Trust”

·      12.00-12.30 Christian Budnik (University of Bern) “The perspective of trust, trust relationships, and trust in democracies”

Parallel Session 2. Trust, Experts, and Disagreement. Room H 1.51

 

·      9.30-10.00 Felix Bräuer (Humboldt University Berlin) “Testimony, Epistemic Communities, and Practical Risks”

·      10.00-10.30 Erin Nash (Durham University) “Testimony, Trust, and Second-Order Evidence”

·      10.30-11.00 Shane Ryan (Nazarbayev University) “Trust, Experts, and the Epistemic Environmentalism”

11.00-11.30 Coffee Break

·      11.30-12.00 Erich Witte (University of Hamburg) and Frank Zenker (Lund University) “Expert disagreement exceeding measurement uncertainty is unreasonable”

·      12.00-12.30 Isaac Choi (Yale) "Trusting Experts: Two Problematic Views and an Escape from Skepticism."

Parallel Session 3. The Erosion of Trust. Room E. 119 35

·      9.30 Dustin Olson (University of Rochester) “Epistemic Exploitation and the Erosion of Trust”

·      10.00 Patrizia Setola (UCD) “The use of experts to manipulate consumers' trust: a case study from the animal industry”

·      10.30 Jan-Jonathan Bok (Cambridge) “Science on Trial: The Politics of Expertise and Social Behaviour after the L’Aquila Earthquake

·      11.00 Coffee Break

·      11.30 Paul Giladi (University of Sheffield/UCD) “The War against Experts and the Reification of National Identity”

·      12.00-12.30 Nikolas Kirby (Oxford) “The People’s Trust: Trust, Distrust and Obligation”

12.30-2.00 Lunch (registration continues)

Panel 1. Trust in Politics. Lynch Theater

Chair: Imelda Maher (University College Dublin, School of Law)

·      2.00 Imelda Maher (UCD) Trust in Politics: Setting the Scene

·      2.20-3.00 Attracta Ingram (University College Dublin) “Political Trust”

·      3.00-3.40 W.G. van der Meer (University of Amsterdam) “Going back to the well: Economics, Elections, and Trust in Politics”

·      3.40- 4.20 Gloria Origgi (CNRS – Institut Nicod – Paris) “Trust in experts, truth and authority: some elements of a political epistemology”

4.30- 5.00 Coffee Break

5.00 Award of the Ulysses Medal to Professor Onora O’Neill, followed by Keynote Address 1. Lynch Theate

Onora O’Neill (University of Cambridge)
"Linking Trust to Trustworthiness”

Chair: Maria Baghramian (UCD School of Philosophy and WEXD)

6.30-7.30 Reception

 

Friday September 1

 

9.00 am – 1.00 am Parallel Session 4. Trust in Economics. Lynch Theater

 Conveners: Don Ross (University College Cork) and Carlo Martini (University of Helsinki)

 

·      9.30 Carlo Martini (University of Helsinki) "Measuring public trust in economics"

·      10.00 Cormac Mac Fhionnlaoich (UCD) “Lessons from Nobel Prize Winners in Economics” 

·      10.30 Coffee Break

·      11.00 Ashley Lait & Alvin Birdi, (Economics Network & University of Bristol) “Economic literacy and trust in economics: evidence from a national survey”

·      11.30 Ben Trubody (University of Gloucestershire) “Mature and Immature Expertise: How Conceptual Inadequacies Can lead to the Undermining of Public Trust in Economics”

·      12.00 Don Ross (University College Cork) “Why economists are most trustworthy when the general public isn't watching?”

Parallel Session 5. Trust in Science. Room H 1.51  

·        9.00 Michael Stoeltzner(University of South Carolina) “Ceteris paribus Laws, Epistemic Reliability and Epistemic Trust in Applied Science” 

·        9.30 Tina Sikka (Newcastle University) “Feminist Epistemology and Trust in Climate Modelling”

·        10.00 Jon Leefmann and Steffen Lesle (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg )

“Knowledge from scientific expert testimony without epistemic trust”

·        10.30 Coffee Break

·        11.00 Haris Shekeris (University of Grenoble) “Trust in Science, Wicked problems and Democracy”

·        11.30 David Harker (East Tennessee State University) “Science isn’t a democracy, but consensus is (higher-order) evidence nonetheless”

·        12.00 Cormac O' Raifeartaigh (Waterford Institute of Technology) “Trust, Uncertainty and Society: The Public Perception of Scientific Uncertainty in the Climate Science Debate”

·        12.30 Leah Henderson (University of Groningen) “Living in Different Worlds: the paradigm-dependence of trust”

1.00-2.00 Lunch

Panel 2. The Epistemology of Trust. Lynch Theater

 Chair: James O’Shea, UCD School of Philosophy 

·      2.00-2.40 Adam Carter (University of Glasgow)“Trust and Competence”

·      2.40-3.20 Ruth Boeker (UCD) “David Hume and Thomas Reid on fidelity to promises and trust”

·      3.20-4.00 Edward Nettle (UCD and WEXD) “On Agency and Trust in the Epistemology of Testimony”

4.00- 4.20 Coffee Break

 

Panel 3. Trust in Data. Lynch Theater

 ·      4.20-5.00 Wendy Parker (University of Durham) "Traceability, Expert Opinion and Trust in Climate Change Assessments".

·      5.00- 5.40 Judith Simon (University of Hamburg) “Trust in Data” 

 

Keynote address 2. Lynch Theater

 5.45 Susan Owens (University of Cambridge)

“Trust, Expertise and the Environment”

Chair: Anna Davies (Trinity College Dublin)

 

7.00 Conference Dinner

 

Saturday September 2

Parallel Session 6. Trust, Policy-Making and the Political Sphere. Lynch Theater

9.30 Carrie Figdor (University of Iowa) “Trust me: News, Credibility Deficits, and Balance”

·      10.00 Nick Tebben (Towson University) & John Waterman (University of New England) “Recognizing Expertise: An Epistemic Collective Action Problem”

·      10.30 Coffee Break

·      11.00 James Butler (Boston College) "Broken Trust: A Gadamarian Take on Experts, Choice, and a Return to the Humanities"

·      11.30 Thi Nguyen (Utah Valley University) “Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubble

12.00 Matthew Dentith (University of Auckland) “Expertise and Conspiracy Theories: On the improvised nature of conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorizing”

 

Parallel Session 7. Trust, Public Discourse and Ethics. Room H 1.51

Chair: Charlotte Blease (WEXD and DIAS)  

·      09.00 Edward E. Spence (Charles Sturt University ) “Trust in Information and its Communication: A Normative Account”

·      9.30 Chris Cowley (University College Dublin) “Trust in institutions, trust in intimate friends, and the risk of self-deception”

·      10.00 Henry Henrysson (University of Iceland) “Is the Moral Philosopher an Expert? A Recent Icelandic Experience”

·      10.30 Coffee Break

·      11.00 Oliver Feeney (University College Galway) “Genuine participation in participant-centred research initiatives: the rhetoric and the potential reality”

·      11.30 Katherine Furman (Durham University) “Policy-Making and the Duty to Gather Evidence”

·      12.00 Lily Eva Frank (Eindhoven University of Technology) “Do as I say, not as I do: What can an obese cardiologist can tell us about trust in ethical expertise?”

12.10-1.00 Report on the findings by WEXD. Lynch Theater

James Beebe, Maria Baghramian, Luke Drury, Finnur Dellsen (When Experts Disagree Research Project)

1.00-2.30 Lunch

 Panel 4. Trust in Science. Lynch Theater

 ·      2.00 Etienne Parizot (Paris Diderot University) “Trust and doubt: a subtle balance between two essential driving forces of science”

·      2.40 Rafael Alves Batista (University of Oxford) “Science, scientific consensus, and public perception of science”

·      3.20 Shane Bergin (University College Dublin)

4.00-4.30 Coffee Break

4.30-6.00 Closing Keynote Address. Lynch Theater

Patrick Honohan (Trinity College Dublin)

"Taking Credit: Trust and Transactions in Economics"

Chair: Luke Drury (Institute for Advanced Studies and WEXD)

6.00-6.15   Closing Remarks: Maria Baghramian and Luke Drury

The conference is generously supported by

The Irish Research Council

UCD School of Philosophy

UCD Institute for Discovery

"The Trinity of Policy-Making"

Failte Ireland

 

Registration: All attendees and contributors, other than the invited speakers, should register using the link below

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/trust-expert-opinion-and-policy-tickets-36168328444

 

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August 25, 2017, 4:00pm IST

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