Epistemological and political distrust in science: anthropological analysis of sources and social consequences
Keywords:
distrust in science, populism, structure of science, relation between science and politics, authority, responsibility, anti-vaccine movementAbstract
The growing and widespread distrust in science and experts have become particularly visible during the 2019 pandemic of coronavirus. The view of science as a practice of mutually opposing and competing theories places the “ordinary people” in a
position of epistemological uncertainty, and this vulnerable position is used by populism to deepen not only the gap between the “ordinary people” and “elite”, but also the distrust in science and experts. In this paper, I develope a typology of distrust in science, identifying epistemological distrust, wich is conditioned by an understanding of the structure of science as a “graveyard of scientific theories”, and political distrust, which represents a reaction to relation between science and politics. I identify these two types as sources of distrust in science, on the basis of which such distrust is interpreted as a response to the instability of authority and as being shaped through cultural models of risk, crisis, and responsibility. This leads to an understanding of distrust in science as a meaningful social response rather than an expression of irrationality and lack of education.
References
Alvarez-Zuzek, Lucila G, Casey M. Zipfel and Shwete Bansal. 2022. “Spatial clustering in vaccination hesitancy: The role of social influence and social selection”. PLoS Computational Biology: 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010437
Boin, Arjen, Allan McConnell and Paul ’t Hart. 2008. “Governing after crisis” in Governing after Crisis: The politics of investigation, accountability, and learning, ed. Arjen Boin, Allan McConnell and Paul ’t Hart. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511756122.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Brownlie, Julie and Alexandra Howson. 2005. “’Leaps of faith’ and MMR: an empirical study of trust”. Sociology 39 (2): 221–239. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038505050536
Burdije, Pjer. 1999 [1972]. Nacrt za jednu teoriju prakse: Tri studije o kabilskoj etnologiji. Beograd: Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva.
Cosenza, Giovanna and Leonardo Sanna. 2023. “The Origins of the Alleged Correlation between Vaccines and Autism. A Semiotic Approach”. Social Epistemology 37 (2): 150–163. http://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2021.1954716
Dellantonio, Sara and Luigi Pastore. 2020. “Ignorance, misconceptions and critical thinking”. Synthese 198 (8): 7473–7501. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229–019–02529–7
Douglas, Mary and Aaron B. Wildavsky. 1983. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Enviromental Dangers. University of California Press.
Douglas, Mary. 1990. “Risk as a Forensic Resource”. Daedalus 119 (4): 1–16. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20025335
Đinđić, Zoran. 1980. Predgovor za Zasnivanje duhovnih nauka od Diltaj, Vilhelm. Beograd: Prosveta.
Eames, Ken T. D. 2009. “Networks of influence and infection: parental choices and childhood disease”. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 6 (38): 811–814. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2009.0085
Eyal, Gil. 2019. The Crisis of Expertise. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Fassin, Didier. 2021. “Of Plots and Men: The Heuristics of Conspiracy Theories”. Current Anthropology 62 (2): 128–137. doi: 10.1086/713829
Gauchat, Gordon. 2012. “Politicization of Science in the Public Sphere: A Study of Public Trust in the United States, 1974 to 2010”. American Sociological Review 77 (2): 167–187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412438225.
Harambam, Jaron and Stef Aupers. 2014. “Contesting epistemic authority: Conspiracy theories on the boundaries of science”. Public Understanding of Science: 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662514559891
Kelsall, Joshua. 2024. “COVID-19 vaccine refusal as unfair free-riding”. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 27 (1): 107–119. doi: 10.1007/s11019–023–10188–2.
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lasco, Gideon and Nicole Curato. 2019. “Medical populism”. Social Science & Medicine 221: 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.12.006.
Latour, Bruno and Steve Woolgar. 1986. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Laursen, Henning Høgh. 2002. “Reflections on the Philosophy of Science beyond Realism and Constructivism”. SATS 3 (1): 83–101. https://doi.org/10.1515/SATS.2002.83
Lerner, Blue, Austin Y. Hubner and Hillary C. Shulman. 2025. “Science populism impacts perceptions of credibility across scientific professions”, Scientific Reports 15 (1): 28465. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598–025–14115–8.
Mazzarella, William. 2019. “The Anthropology of Populism: Beyond the Liberal Settlement”. Annual Review of Anthropology 48 (1): 45–60. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102218–011412.
Milenković, Miloš. 2022. „Metodologija društvenih nauka i humanistike u doba populističkog poricanja nauke: Povodom knjige Nine Kulenović „Koncept kulture između individualizma i holizma””. Antropologija 22 (3): 9–19. preuzeto od https://www.antropologija.com/index.php/an/article/view/112
Mizrahi, Moti. 2016. “The history of science as a graveyard of theories: a philosophers’ myth?”. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 30 (3): 263–278. doi:10.1080/02698595.2017.1316113.
Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre. 2015. “Methodological Populism and Ideological Populism in Anthropology”. In Epistemology, Fieldwork and Anthropology, edited by Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, 133–165. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137477880_6.
Pelkmans, Mathijs and Rhys Machold. 2011. “Conspiracy theories and their truth trajectories”. Focaal-Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 59: 66–80. https://doi.org/10.3167/fcl.2011.590105.
Popper, Karl R. 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson & Co.
Rekker, Roderik. 2021. “The nature and origins of political polarization over science”. Public Understanding of Science 30 (4): 352–368. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662521989193
Sardar, Ziauddin. 2001. Thomas Kuhn i ratovi znanosti. Zagreb: Naklada Jesenski i Turk.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Margaret M. Lock. 1987. “The mindful body: A prolegomenon to future work in medical anthropology”. Medical anthropology quarterly 1.1: 6–41. https://doi.org/10.1525/maq.1987.1.1.02a00020.
ERIH PLUS - European Reference Index for the Humanities
CEEOL - Central and Eastern European Online Library
The DOI Foundation