Trusting scientific experts in an online world.

A perennial problem in social epistemology is the problem of expert testimony, specifically expert testimony regarding scientific issues: for example, while it is important for me to know information pertaining to anthropogenic climate change, vaccine safety, Covid-19, etc., I may lack the scientific background required to determine whether the information I come across is, in fact, true. Without being able to evaluate the science itself, then, I need to find trustworthy expert testifiers to listen to. A major project in social epistemology has thus become determining what the markers of trustworthiness are that laypersons can appeal to in order to identify and acquire information from expert testifiers. At the same time, the ways in which we acquire scientific information has changed significantly, with much of it nowadays being acquired in online environments. While much has been said about the potential pitfalls of seeking information online (e.g. the prevalence of filter bubbles, echo chambers, and the overall proliferation of "fake news"), little has been said about how the nature of seeking information online should make us think about the problem of expert testimony. Indeed, it seems to be an underlying assumption that good markers of trustworthiness apply equally well when seeking information from expert testifiers in online and offline environments alike, and that the new challenges and opportunities presented by online environments merely affects the methods by which we can acquire evidence of said trustworthiness. Here I argue that in making this assumption one risks failing to account for how unique features of the ways in which we acquire information online affect how we evaluate the trustworthiness of experts. Specifically, I argue for two main claims: first, that the nature of information-seeking online is such that the extent to which information is susceptible to manipulation is a dominant marker of trustworthiness; second, as a result, one will be more likely to seek out a particular kind of expert testifier in online environments, what I call a cooperative as opposed to preemptive expert. The result is that criteria for expert trustworthiness may look significantly different when acquiring information online as opposed to offline.

Triage, consent and trusting black boxes

A similar concern to temper utilitarian considerations, in this case with an Aristotelian view of the common good as ‘the good life for each and every member of the community’ is expressed in ‘Public health decisions in the COVID-19 pandemic require more than ‘follow the science’’ by de Campos-Rudinsky and Undurraga.2 Public health decisions, they argue, ‘always involve layers of complexity, coupled with uncertainty’: ‘the implication of the incommensurability of basic human goods… is that when tensions between them arise (such as happened during this pandemic, when preservation of health required the adaptation of how we experience work, education, leisure, family and friendships), the solution cannot be readily determined by a simple balancing test’. In response, they ‘set forth a series of concrete ethical proposals with which to face the successive waves of COVID-19 infection, as well as other future pandemics’: these include the duty of health authorities ‘to plan for foreseeable ethical challenges during a health emergency’, and the duty of ‘public organisms at the national level, such as national committees on ethics…to prepare the protocols for care and treatment that would help physicians and healthcare workers to manage the predictable uncertainty and distress in healthcare emergencies’. Turning to a currently pressing international aspect of resource allocation, Jecker and colleagues, in ‘Vaccine ethics: an ethical framework for global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines’4 marshal an impressive amount of empirical research and ethical theory to argue that ‘in order to accelerate development and fair, efficient vaccine allocation…vaccines should be distributed globally, with priority to frontline and essential workers worldwide’: ‘ethical values to guide vaccine distribution’, they conclude, should ‘highlight values of helping the neediest, reducing health disparities, saving lives and keeping society functioning’. Because of the pandemic and the fear of health services being overwhelmed by it, research on and treatment of other conditions, no less serious for the individual patient, have lacked resources which urgently require to be restored.

Sustaining University Operations During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Colleges and universities around the world engaged diverse strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Baylor University, a community of ˜22,700 individuals, was 1 of the institutions which resumed and sustained operations. The key strategy was establishment of multidisciplinary teams to develop mitigation strategies and priority areas for action. This population-based team approach along with implementation of a "Swiss Cheese" risk mitigation model allowed small clusters to be rapidly addressed through testing, surveillance, tracing, isolation, and quarantine. These efforts were supported by health protocols including face coverings, social distancing, and compliance monitoring. As a result, activities were sustained from August 1 to December 8, 2020. There were 62,970 COVID-19 tests conducted with 1435 people testing positive for a positivity rate of 2.28%. A total of 1670 COVID-19 cases were identified with 235 self-reports. The mean number of tests per week was 3500 with approximately 80 of these positive (11/d). More than 60 student tracers were trained with over 120 personnel available to contact trace, at a ratio of 1 per 400 university members. The successes and lessons learned provide a framework and pathway for similar institutions to mitigate the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 and sustain operations during a global pandemic.

Beyond politics: additional factors underlying skepticism of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Even before it had been developed there had already been skepticism among the general public concerning a vaccine for COVID-19. What are the factors that drive this skepticism? While much has been said about how political differences are at play, in this article I draw attention to two additional factors that have not received as much attention: witnessing the fallibility of the scientific process play out in real time, and a perceived breakdown of the distinction between experts and non-experts.