Almassi, Benjamin S. P. (Author)
This project explores the evidential significance of trust in expert testimony in science, grounded in modern physics. I illustrate how attention to social considerations has evidential relevance and so identify common ground for philosophers and others interested in science. I articulate conceptions of testimony as evidential, of epistemic trust as compatible with critical assessment, and of expertise as compatible with epistemic interdependence. This allows us to see trust in expert testimony as epistemologically fertile and subject to rational scrutiny, and more generally helps clarify the difference between social reputation and rational authority while exploring their interconnection. So grounded I consider how social circumstances inform the trustworthiness of scientific expert testimony. One such circumstance concerns unmatched expertise, where a community must evaluate a speaker whose special expertise surpasses everyone else. Here I investigate Eddington's eclipse expedition testing Einstein's general theory of relativity and prediction of starlight deflection. Circumstances isolated Eddington as unmatched British relativity expert and his expedition as an unmatched evidential source on general relativity. Despite the epistemic inequality involved, I argue, the acceptance of Eddington's pro-relativity testimony by his British contemporaries did not require entirely uncritical deference to his expertise: Eddington's claims were importantly corroborated by community members with overlapping expertise. A second circumstance concerns conflicting expertise. Can experts on opposite sides reasonably disagree? What can non-experts do given conflicting expertise? Here I investigate the dispute over Weber's search for gravity waves. Weber's claim to have detected gravity waves was greeted with optimism; but soon his field rejected his claim though he remained convinced. Engaging conflicting analyses by Franklin and Collins, I find common ground between them and explain how Weber's and his peers' stances could both be reasonable. I use this case to evaluate philosophical proposals for non-expert assessment of expert disagreement with implications for indirect indicators of expert trustworthiness. This case enables fruitful engagement with epistemology of disagreement and science studies scholarship on relativistic methodology; I argue for the possibility of reasonable disagreement in experimental science and critique Collins's methodological relativism contrasted against other relativisms and my social epistemological approach.
...MoreDescription “Explores the evidential significance of trust in expert testimony in science, grounded in modern physics,” looking at Eddington's eclipse expedition to test relativity and the testing of Weber's gravity wave claims. (from the abstract) Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. . ProQuest Doc. ID 305015449.
Book
Collins, Harry;
(2013)
Gravity's Ghost and Big Dog: Scientific Discovery and Social Analysis in the Twenty-First Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001213158/)
Article
Almassi, Ben;
(2009)
Trust in Expert Testimony: Eddington's 1919 Eclipse Expedition and the British Response to General Relativity
(/isis/citation/CBB000933690/)
Chapter
Adele La Rana;
Leopoldo Milano;
(2017)
The early history of gravitational wave detection in Italy: from the first resonant bars to the beginning of the Virgo collaboration
(/isis/citation/CBB539457270/)
Chapter
Massimo Bassan;
Adele La Rana;
(2017)
Gravitational interferometers in Italy 1976: a first timid attempt. And a missed opportunity
(/isis/citation/CBB301389997/)
Chapter
Luisa Bonolis;
Adele La Rana;
(2016)
The beginning of Edoardo Amaldi’s interest in gravitation experiments and in gravitational wave research
(/isis/citation/CBB705369811/)
Book
Ron Cowen;
(2019)
Gravity’s Century: From Einstein’s Eclipse to Images of Black Holes
(/isis/citation/CBB699668949/)
Chapter
Capria, Marco Mamone;
(2005)
General Relativity: Gravitation as Geometry and the Machian Programme
(/isis/citation/CBB000651176/)
Article
Torretti, Roberto;
(2000)
Gravity as spacetime curvature
(/isis/citation/CBB000110494/)
Article
Rowe, David E.;
(2001)
Einstein Meets Hilbert: At the Crossroads of Physics and Mathematics
(/isis/citation/CBB000102532/)
Article
Tilman Sauer;
(2021)
Soldner, Einstein, Gravitational Light Deflection and Factors of Two
(/isis/citation/CBB321888925/)
Book
Harry Collins;
(2017)
Gravity's Kiss: The Detection of Gravitational Waves
(/isis/citation/CBB935483511/)
Book
Marcus Chown;
(2017)
The Ascent of Gravity: The Quest to Understand the Force that Explains Everything
(/isis/citation/CBB076586299/)
Book
Kennefick, Daniel;
(2007)
Traveling at the Speed of Thought: Einstein and the Quest for Gravitational Waves
(/isis/citation/CBB000741833/)
Article
Smadja, Ivahn;
(2010)
Tuning up Mind's Pattern to Nature's Own Idea: Eddington's Early Twenties Case for Variational Derivatives
(/isis/citation/CBB000933694/)
Article
Alexander S. Blum;
Roberto Lalli;
Jürgen Renn;
(2016)
The Renaissance of General Relativity: How and Why It Happened
(/isis/citation/CBB835131359/)
Article
Pound, Robert V.;
(2000)
Weighing Photons, I
(/isis/citation/CBB000110128/)
Article
Sauer, Tilman;
(2008)
Nova Geminorum 1912 and the Origin of the Idea of Gravitational Lensing
(/isis/citation/CBB000773886/)
Article
Pitts, J. Brian;
(2006)
Absolute Objects and Counterexamples: Jones-Geroch Dust, Torretti Constant Curvature, Tetrad-Spinor, and Scalar Density
(/isis/citation/CBB000670178/)
Article
Halpern, Paul;
(2007)
Klein, Einstein, and Five-Dimensional Unification
(/isis/citation/CBB000850201/)
Article
Giulio Peruzzi;
Alessio Rocci;
(2019)
Quantum Cultures during the Prehistory of Quantum Gravity: Léon Rosenfeld's Early Contributions to Quantum Gravity
(/isis/citation/CBB959398801/)
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