1.1 Introduction and When Is Science Relevant

Scientific expertise is essential in public decision making, but how should it be integrated with the diverse values in a society? We distinguish between facts and values and provoke a discussion on democracy vs. epistocracy as systems for making societal decisions.

The Lesson in Context

As the first topic of the course, this lesson sets the tone by teaching the importance of science in society and political decision making. Specifically, societal decision making in a well-functioning society incorporates factual knowledge offered by scientific expertise with values judgments made by the wider public. We allude to processes for decision making that incorporate facts and values that will be taught near the end of the semester.

Later Lessons

5.1 False Positives and Negatives

In any detection problem, such as in smoke detectors or medical diagnosis, it is not sufficient to obtain a measurement value from an instrument. The decision of where to place the threshold for detection depends on a values judgment of the severity of the consequence of a false (non)-detection.

13.1 Denver Bullet Study

Denver Bullet Study method incorporates facts and values by splitting the decision making process into two parts. Factual evaluation is done by relevant experts, while the prioritizing of values is done independently by the general public.

13.2 Deliberative Polling

Deliberative polling incorporates facts and values by providing a neutral and factual briefing document as well as opinions by relevant experts, while letting participants from the general public deliberate with each other in groups.

Takeaways

After this lesson, students should

Recognize the need to distinguish facts from values in political and everyday decision-making.
Realize that social and behavioral aspects of the world can be approached scientifically and, therefore, have relevant experts.
Understand that scientific expertise has utility for political decision-making.

Sometimes people think political decision-making is entirely a matter of values and opinions. However, an evidence-based scientific understanding can inform us about which policies are likely to have which outcomes. Sometimes politicians disagree not only about values, but also about facts. Scientific expertise, when the system is working effectively, can help arbitrate some of these disputes over fact, though not those over value.

Facts

Claims about the objective truth of reality. Everything that is the case. What is, descriptively, including spatial relations, causal relations, attributes of objects, etc.

Values

What is of value, important, of worth. Oughts, shoulds, etcs.

Students tend to be familiar with the distinction between facts and values. The commonest misconception is the idea that there are no facts about values. A result from a survey about values can be a matter of fact, even if its interpretation is likely to be influenced by value. A simpler example: A person's love of ice cream may be a value they have, but that they love ice cream is a fact about them.

Democracy

A system of government wherein a society's citizens all have input into policies.

Epistocracy

A system of government wherein a particular subset of a society—privileged by their education or other markers of expertise—decides policies.

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