How to assess the epistemic wrongness of sponsorship bias? The case of manufactured certainty

Leefmann J (2021)


Publication Language: English

Publication Type: Journal article, Original article

Publication year: 2021

Journal

URI: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frma.2021.599909/abstract

DOI: 10.3389/frma.2021.599909

Open Access Link: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frma.2021.599909/abstract

Abstract

Although the impact of so-called “sponsorship bias” has been the subject of increased attention in the philosophy of science, what exactly constitutes its epistemic wrongness is still debated. In this paper, I will argue that neither evidential accounts nor social-epistemological accounts can fully account for the epistemic wrongness of sponsorship bias, but there are good reasons to prefer social-epistemological to evidential accounts. I will defend this claim by examining how both accounts deal with a paradigm case from medical epistemology, recently discussed in a paper by Bennett Holman. I will argue that evidential accounts cannot adequately capture cases of sponsorship bias that involve the manufacturing of certainty, because of their neutrality with respect to the role of non-epistemic values in scientific practice. If my argument holds, it further highlights the importance of integrating social and ethical concerns into epistemological analysis, especially in applied contexts. One can only properly grasp sponsorship bias as an epistemological problem if one resists the methodological tendency to analyze social, ethical and epistemological issues in isolation from each other.

Authors with CRIS profile

How to cite

APA:

Leefmann, J. (2021). How to assess the epistemic wrongness of sponsorship bias? The case of manufactured certainty. Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics. https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.599909

MLA:

Leefmann, Jon. "How to assess the epistemic wrongness of sponsorship bias? The case of manufactured certainty." Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics (2021).

BibTeX: Download