Civic Learning When the Facts Are Politicized

How Values Shape Facts, and What to Do about It

Dados Bibliográficos

ID20337482
AutoresGregory E Kaebnick (autor correspondente)
Ano2021
Volume51
FascículoS1
PáginasS40-S45
Data de publicação2021-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Hastings Center Report (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0093-0334 • E-ISSN: 1552-146X
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/hast.1228
PMID33630340
OpenAlexW3130938855
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas6

Social debates about highly technical topics are often driven by values yet dwell on facts. The debate about whether genetically modified organisms are acceptable in food, for example, focuses on causal claims about consumers’ health or the environment, but the language and imagery surrounding it often point to underlying misgivings about the human relationship to nature or the use of science. In such cases, it is not always possible to resolve the factual disputes simply by articulating the facts better. Because of various features of human reasoning—cognitive biases and heuristics, the very nature of facts, and the central role of social trust in how people learn—facts cannot be fully disentangled from values. Three lessons can then be drawn. First, values sometimes need to be discussed at the outset of debate, before or while addressing facts. Second, factual issues can and should sometimes be framed in less politicized ways. Third, factual claims that have a limited evidentiary basis may nonetheless need to be aired and discussed

Cognition · Epistemology · Heuristics · Point (geometry) · Sociology · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology