Kevin C Elliott
Biographic Data
| ID | 105998 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kevin C Elliott |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kevin C |
| FAMILY NAME | Elliott |
| SIGNATURE | ELLIOTT K C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3397-7849 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 222 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Does science communication have its goals wrong? From persuading science skeptics to promoting scientific empowerment
There is widespread concern that the scientific enterprise is under attack, fuelled by misinformation campaigns, anti-intellectual political leaders, and growing public skepticism. In response, many scientists are mobilising to “stand up for science,” hoping to persuade publics of the many public health, technological, and economic benefits brought by scientific discoveries. In this commentary, we argue that such persuasion-based science communic…
Rethinking the science-policy interface for chemicals, waste, and pollution: Challenging core assumptions
Negotiations for a new science-policy interface aim to complement similar bodies for climate change and biodiversity. • Existing models of science-policy panels are ill-suited to address unique aspects of chemicals and waste issues. • Policy uptake is a key feature of the new panel’s design. • Participation by stakeholders is vital, but industry input requires safeguards. • Further research on chemicals and waste issues will be able to contribute…
Subconscious value influences on science
Philosophical scholarship on science and values has gradually shifted away from asking whether values have any legitimate role to play in scientific judgment and decision-making and toward considering how to responsibly manage value influences to protect the integrity, rigor, reliability, and trustworthiness of science. This scholarship has focused primarily on helping individual scientists deal with cases in which they are aware of the values at…
The Promise and Perils of NGO-Supported Science
Until recently, philosophers of science have largely focused their attention on academic and industry-funded research, overlooking the contributions of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to science. Nevertheless, NGO-supported science is highly significant both from a practical perspective (serving as a source of impactful research that can address the needs of local communities) and a theoretical perspective (serving as a unique institutional …
The importance of inclusive climate within the research group, department, and profession for marginalized science scholars’ career outcomes
Against global aims for science: Values, epistemic priority, and a local aims approach
Philosophers commonly make claims about the aims of science, and these claims have played a significant role in debates about topics like scientific realism, modeling, and idealization. Nevertheless, there has been little discussion about the basis for those aims or the source of justification for claims about those aims. We use recent debates about the appropriate roles for values in science to bring this lack of discussion to the fore. These de…
Science, Values, and the New Demarcation Problem
Navigating dissent by managing value judgments: The case of Lyme disease
Addressing the Reproducibility Crisis: A Response to Hudson
Just and Inclusive Team Climates Affect Mentoring Satisfaction: The Roles of Negative Mentoring and Race
As more work is being conducted in teams, mentees have increased opportunities to develop non-traditional mentoring relationships. We investigate how and when three aspects of team climate (procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and inclusion) influence mentoring satisfaction among mentees with an informal secondary mentor. Using survey data from 116 researchers on environmental science teams, we test whether (a) just and inclusive team clima…
A Taxonomy of Transparency in Science
Both scientists and philosophers of science have recently emphasized the importance of promoting transparency in science. For scientists, transparency is a way to promote reproducibility, progress, and trust in research. For philosophers of science, transparency can help address the value-ladenness of scientific research in a responsible way. Nevertheless, the concept of transparency is a complex one. Scientists can be transparent about many diff…
Open Science for Non-Specialists: Making Open Science Meaningful Beyond the Scientific Community
A major goal of the open science movement is to make more scientific information available to non-specialists, but it has been difficult to meaningfully achieve that goal. In response, this paper argues for two steps: (1) focusing on the scientific content that is most relevant to non-specialist audiences; and (2) packaging that content in meaningful ways for those audiences. The paper uses a case study involving a major environmental health issu…
The value-ladenness of transparency in science: Lessons from Lyme disease
A Framework for Analyzing Broadly Engaged Philosophy of Science
Philosophers of science are increasingly interested in engaging with scientific communities, policy makers, and members of the public; however, the nature of this engagement has not been systematically examined. Instead of delineating a specific kind of engaged philosophy of science, as previous accounts have done, this article draws on literature from outside the discipline to develop a framework for analyzing different forms of broadly engaged …
Value-entanglement and the integrity of scientific research
Addressing Industry-Funded Research with Criteria for Objectivity
In recent years, industry-funded research has come under fire because of concerns that it can be biased in favor of the funders. This article suggests that efforts by philosophers of science to analyze the concept of objectivity can provide important lessons for those seeking to evaluate and improve industry-funded research. It identifies three particularly relevant criteria for objectivity: transparency, reproducibility, and effective criticism.…
The promise and perils of industry-funded science
Private companies provide by far the most funding for scientific research and development. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been paid to the dynamics of industry-funded research by philosophers of science. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of the major strengths and weaknesses of industry research funding, together with the existing recommendations for addressing the weaknesses. It is designed to provide a starti…
Teaching and learning guide for: The promise and perils of industry-funded research
Exploring Inductive Risk
According to the argument from inductive risk, scientists have responsibilities to consider the consequences of error when they set evidential standards for making decisions such as accepting or rejecting hypotheses. This argument has received a great deal of scholarly attention in recent years. Exploring Inductive Risk brings together a set of concrete case studies with the goals of illustrating the pervasiveness of inductive risk, assisting sci…
A Tapestry of Values: An Introduction to Values in Science
This book makes the contemporary philosophical literature on science and values accessible to a wide readership. It focuses on two questions: What are the major ways in which scientific reasoning can be influenced by values? and How can we tell whether those influences are appropriate or not? To address these questions, it examines case studies from a variety of research areas, including climate science, anthropology, chemical risk assessment, ec…
Exploring Inductive Risk
The introductory chapter provides an overview of the book Exploring Inductive Risk . It introduces the concept of inductive risk, briefly traces the history of the argument from inductive risk, and sets out the book’s chapters in terms of four themes. The first part, “Weighing Inductive Risk,” illustrates the concept of inductive risk and the judgments involved in weighing different sorts of errors. The chapters in the second part, “Evading Induc…
Inductive Risk, Deferred Decisions, and Climate Science Advising: Case Studies of Values in Science
This chapter discusses the philosophical viability of Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch’s proposed pragmatic-enlightened model of science advising, as well as the practical application of their proposed model to the case of climate science advising. Edenhofer and Kowarsch’s model makes central use of a cartographic metaphor—one in which scientists and policymakers craft and consider different scientific routes to various value-laden ethical, p…
Selective ignorance in environmental research
This chapter focuses on a particular form or type of ignorance—namely, selective ignorance. It occurs when people produce or disseminate specific sorts of information about a topic or entity while failing to produce or emphasize other information about it. The chapter clarifies the concept of selective ignorance and its relationship to other literature on the topic of ignorance. It shows that this concept can be helpful both from a practical pers…
A framework for addressing ethical issues in citizen science
Introduction: Cognitive attitudes and values in science
Nonepistemic Values and the Multiple Goals of Science
Recent efforts to argue that nonepistemic values have a legitimate role to play in assessing scientific models, theories, and hypotheses typically either reject the distinction between epistemic and nonepistemic values or incorporate nonepistemic values only as a secondary consideration for resolving epistemic uncertainty. Given that scientific representations can legitimately be evaluated not only based on their fit with the world but also with …
Douglas on values: From indirect roles to multiple goals
How Values in Scientific Discovery and Pursuit Alter Theory Appraisal
Philosophers of science readily acknowledge that nonepistemic values influence the discovery and pursuit of scientific theories, but many tend to regard these influences as epistemically uninteresting. The present paper challenges this position by identifying three avenues through which nonepistemic values associated with discovery and pursuit in contemporary pollution research influence theory appraisal: (1) by guiding the choice of questions an…
Direct and Indirect Roles for Values in Science
Although many philosophers have employed the distinction between “direct” and “indirect” roles for values in science, I argue that it merits further clarification. The distinction can be formulated in several ways: as a logical point, as a distinction between epistemic attitudes, or as a clarification of different consequences associated with accepting scientific claims. Moreover, it can serve either as part of a normative ideal or as a tool for …
Cognitive Attitudes and Values in Science
We argue that the analysis of cognitive attitudes should play a central role in developing more sophisticated accounts of the proper roles for values in science. First, we show that the major recent efforts to delineate appropriate roles for values in science would be strengthened by making clearer distinctions among cognitive attitudes. Next, we turn to a specific example and argue that a more careful account of the distinction between the attit…
The promise and perils of industry-funded science
Private companies provide by far the most funding for scientific research and development. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been paid to the dynamics of industry-funded research by philosophers of science. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of the major strengths and weaknesses of industry research funding, together with the existing recommendations for addressing the weaknesses. It is designed to provide a starti…
Selective Ignorance and Agricultural Research
Scholars working in science and technology studies have recently argued that we could learn much about the nature of scientific knowledge by paying closer attention to scientific ignorance. Building on the work of Robert Proctor, this article shows how ignorance can stem from a wide range of selective research choices that incline researchers toward partial, limited understandings of complex phenomena. A recent report produced by the Internationa…
A framework for addressing ethical issues in citizen science
A Framework for Analyzing Broadly Engaged Philosophy of Science
Philosophers of science are increasingly interested in engaging with scientific communities, policy makers, and members of the public; however, the nature of this engagement has not been systematically examined. Instead of delineating a specific kind of engaged philosophy of science, as previous accounts have done, this article draws on literature from outside the discipline to develop a framework for analyzing different forms of broadly engaged …
Introduction: Cognitive attitudes and values in science
Epistemic and methodological iteration in scientific research
The value-ladenness of transparency in science: Lessons from Lyme disease
Value-entanglement and the integrity of scientific research
The Ethical Significance of Language in the Environmental Sciences: Case Studies from Pollution Research
This paper examines how ethically significant assumptions and values are embedded not only in environmental policies but also in the language of the environmental sciences. It shows, based on three case studies associated with contemporary pollution research, how the choice of scientific categories and terms can have at least four ethically significant effects: influencing the future course of scientific research; altering public awareness or att…
Against global aims for science: Values, epistemic priority, and a local aims approach
Philosophers commonly make claims about the aims of science, and these claims have played a significant role in debates about topics like scientific realism, modeling, and idealization. Nevertheless, there has been little discussion about the basis for those aims or the source of justification for claims about those aims. We use recent debates about the appropriate roles for values in science to bring this lack of discussion to the fore. These de…
From genetic to genomic regulation: Iterativity in microRNA research
Rethinking the science-policy interface for chemicals, waste, and pollution: Challenging core assumptions
Negotiations for a new science-policy interface aim to complement similar bodies for climate change and biodiversity. • Existing models of science-policy panels are ill-suited to address unique aspects of chemicals and waste issues. • Policy uptake is a key feature of the new panel’s design. • Participation by stakeholders is vital, but industry input requires safeguards. • Further research on chemicals and waste issues will be able to contribute…
Navigating dissent by managing value judgments: The case of Lyme disease
Addressing Industry-Funded Research with Criteria for Objectivity
In recent years, industry-funded research has come under fire because of concerns that it can be biased in favor of the funders. This article suggests that efforts by philosophers of science to analyze the concept of objectivity can provide important lessons for those seeking to evaluate and improve industry-funded research. It identifies three particularly relevant criteria for objectivity: transparency, reproducibility, and effective criticism.…
Error as Means to Discovery
This paper argues, first, that recent studies of experimentation, most notably by Deborah Mayo, provide the conceptual resources to describe scientific discovery's early stages as error-probing processes. Second, it shows that this description yields greater understanding of those early stages, including the challenges that they pose, the research strategies associated with them, and their influence on the rest of the discovery process. Throughou…
The importance of inclusive climate within the research group, department, and profession for marginalized science scholars’ career outcomes
Open Science for Non-Specialists: Making Open Science Meaningful Beyond the Scientific Community
A major goal of the open science movement is to make more scientific information available to non-specialists, but it has been difficult to meaningfully achieve that goal. In response, this paper argues for two steps: (1) focusing on the scientific content that is most relevant to non-specialist audiences; and (2) packaging that content in meaningful ways for those audiences. The paper uses a case study involving a major environmental health issu…
Norton’s Conception of Sustainability: Political, Not Metaphysical
A Novel Account of Scientific Anomaly: Help for the Dispute over Low-Dose Biochemical Effects
The biological effects of low doses of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals are currently a matter of significant scientific controversy. This paper argues that philosophers of science can contribute to alleviating this controversy by examining it with the aid of a novel account of scientific anomaly. Specifically, analysis of contemporary research on chemical hormesis (i.e., alleged beneficial biological effects produced by low doses of substances t…
Error as Means to Discovery
This paper argues, first, that recent studies of experimentation, most notably by Deborah Mayo, provide the conceptual resources to describe scientific discovery's early stages as error-probing processes. Second, it shows that this description yields greater understanding of those early stages, including the challenges that they pose, the research strategies associated with them, and their influence on the rest of the discovery process. Throughou…
A Novel Account of Scientific Anomaly: Help for the Dispute over Low-Dose Biochemical Effects
The biological effects of low doses of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals are currently a matter of significant scientific controversy. This paper argues that philosophers of science can contribute to alleviating this controversy by examining it with the aid of a novel account of scientific anomaly. Specifically, analysis of contemporary research on chemical hormesis (i.e., alleged beneficial biological effects produced by low doses of substances t…
Norton’s Conception of Sustainability: Political, Not Metaphysical
The Ethical Significance of Language in the Environmental Sciences: Case Studies from Pollution Research
This paper examines how ethically significant assumptions and values are embedded not only in environmental policies but also in the language of the environmental sciences. It shows, based on three case studies associated with contemporary pollution research, how the choice of scientific categories and terms can have at least four ethically significant effects: influencing the future course of scientific research; altering public awareness or att…
How Values in Scientific Discovery and Pursuit Alter Theory Appraisal
Philosophers of science readily acknowledge that nonepistemic values influence the discovery and pursuit of scientific theories, but many tend to regard these influences as epistemically uninteresting. The present paper challenges this position by identifying three avenues through which nonepistemic values associated with discovery and pursuit in contemporary pollution research influence theory appraisal: (1) by guiding the choice of questions an…
From genetic to genomic regulation: Iterativity in microRNA research
Nature in Common
Is a Little Pollution Good for You?: Incorporating Societal Values in Environmental Research
This book examines a variety of ways in which societal values can be more effectively integrated into the numerous judgments associated with policy‐relevant environmental research. It provides a detailed analysis of contemporary research on the hypothesis of hormesis (i.e., beneficial biological effects caused by low‐dose exposure to pollutants that are ordinarily toxic). On the basis of this analysis, as well as shorter case studies of endocrine…
Direct and Indirect Roles for Values in Science
Although many philosophers have employed the distinction between “direct” and “indirect” roles for values in science, I argue that it merits further clarification. The distinction can be formulated in several ways: as a logical point, as a distinction between epistemic attitudes, or as a clarification of different consequences associated with accepting scientific claims. Moreover, it can serve either as part of a normative ideal or as a tool for …
Epistemic and methodological iteration in scientific research
Douglas on values: From indirect roles to multiple goals
Cognitive Attitudes and Values in Science
We argue that the analysis of cognitive attitudes should play a central role in developing more sophisticated accounts of the proper roles for values in science. First, we show that the major recent efforts to delineate appropriate roles for values in science would be strengthened by making clearer distinctions among cognitive attitudes. Next, we turn to a specific example and argue that a more careful account of the distinction between the attit…
Selective Ignorance and Agricultural Research
Scholars working in science and technology studies have recently argued that we could learn much about the nature of scientific knowledge by paying closer attention to scientific ignorance. Building on the work of Robert Proctor, this article shows how ignorance can stem from a wide range of selective research choices that incline researchers toward partial, limited understandings of complex phenomena. A recent report produced by the Internationa…
Nonepistemic Values and the Multiple Goals of Science
Recent efforts to argue that nonepistemic values have a legitimate role to play in assessing scientific models, theories, and hypotheses typically either reject the distinction between epistemic and nonepistemic values or incorporate nonepistemic values only as a secondary consideration for resolving epistemic uncertainty. Given that scientific representations can legitimately be evaluated not only based on their fit with the world but also with …
Selective ignorance in environmental research
This chapter focuses on a particular form or type of ignorance—namely, selective ignorance. It occurs when people produce or disseminate specific sorts of information about a topic or entity while failing to produce or emphasize other information about it. The chapter clarifies the concept of selective ignorance and its relationship to other literature on the topic of ignorance. It shows that this concept can be helpful both from a practical pers…
A framework for addressing ethical issues in citizen science
Introduction: Cognitive attitudes and values in science
Exploring Inductive Risk
According to the argument from inductive risk, scientists have responsibilities to consider the consequences of error when they set evidential standards for making decisions such as accepting or rejecting hypotheses. This argument has received a great deal of scholarly attention in recent years. Exploring Inductive Risk brings together a set of concrete case studies with the goals of illustrating the pervasiveness of inductive risk, assisting sci…
A Tapestry of Values: An Introduction to Values in Science
This book makes the contemporary philosophical literature on science and values accessible to a wide readership. It focuses on two questions: What are the major ways in which scientific reasoning can be influenced by values? and How can we tell whether those influences are appropriate or not? To address these questions, it examines case studies from a variety of research areas, including climate science, anthropology, chemical risk assessment, ec…
Exploring Inductive Risk
The introductory chapter provides an overview of the book Exploring Inductive Risk . It introduces the concept of inductive risk, briefly traces the history of the argument from inductive risk, and sets out the book’s chapters in terms of four themes. The first part, “Weighing Inductive Risk,” illustrates the concept of inductive risk and the judgments involved in weighing different sorts of errors. The chapters in the second part, “Evading Induc…
Inductive Risk, Deferred Decisions, and Climate Science Advising: Case Studies of Values in Science
This chapter discusses the philosophical viability of Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch’s proposed pragmatic-enlightened model of science advising, as well as the practical application of their proposed model to the case of climate science advising. Edenhofer and Kowarsch’s model makes central use of a cartographic metaphor—one in which scientists and policymakers craft and consider different scientific routes to various value-laden ethical, p…
Addressing Industry-Funded Research with Criteria for Objectivity
In recent years, industry-funded research has come under fire because of concerns that it can be biased in favor of the funders. This article suggests that efforts by philosophers of science to analyze the concept of objectivity can provide important lessons for those seeking to evaluate and improve industry-funded research. It identifies three particularly relevant criteria for objectivity: transparency, reproducibility, and effective criticism.…
The promise and perils of industry-funded science
Private companies provide by far the most funding for scientific research and development. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been paid to the dynamics of industry-funded research by philosophers of science. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of the major strengths and weaknesses of industry research funding, together with the existing recommendations for addressing the weaknesses. It is designed to provide a starti…
Teaching and learning guide for: The promise and perils of industry-funded research
Value-entanglement and the integrity of scientific research
Epistemology (28 works) · Philosophy (26 works) · Political science (21 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Computer Science (19 works) · Engineering ethics (17 works) · Engineering (16 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies (12 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (10 works)