Fallibility and Revision in Science and Society - Standard Research Grant

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Introduction: The focal problem of the proposal is significant and a matter of broad interest: how to bring second order beliefs (beliefs about beliefs) to bear on first order beliefs. Such issues arise, for example, in the context of legal assessments of evidence where jurists are called on to consider general considerations of reliability when adjudicating specific eye witness evidence. Intellectual Merit: Although probabilistic approaches to rational belief have become very popular, there is no standard way of using these models to represent the first-order/second-order interactions such as the one mentioned above. A successful account of these interactions would represent a major achievement in probabilistic understanding of rational belief. The project promises to provide a formula for how second order beliefs affect first order beliefs. Broader Impact: Among the potential broader impacts of the results of this project is a potential for providing a basis for a view of science that is neither dogmatic nor skeptical, which could mitigate the polarization of opinion exemplified in the so-called "science wars". These results might also be used to understand how jurors can take proper account of their own fallibility in doing their job thereby providing the project with obvious social importance. Other broader impacts may result from the publication of a planned book whose audience includes students in courses in criminology and philosophy of science. Insofar as the book will be studied by college students in various majors, its impact will reach well beyond professionals in the investigator's field. The project may also have a significant effect beyond the usual academic circles through the production of pamphlets that are addressed to policymakers, jurors, and the public at large that address the public perception of science (for example, how to reconcile the reliability of science with its fallibility), the dynamics of group decision-making by juries, and the proper way to evaluate forensic evidence, expert testimony, and eyewitness reports. For a project in philosophy, the proposed project has unusually broad impact.