[spsp-members] International Postdoc Forum for the Philosophy of Science: 5 April (Wednesday)

[Alan Love]

*5 April 2023, 12:15pm CDT (UTC+5*)
*The Value-Free Ideal and the Resilience of the Deficit Model in Science
Communication*
T.Y. Branch (CONCEPT - Cologne Center for Contemporary Epistemology and the
Kantian Tradition, University of Cologne)

*Abstract*: In the wake of science’s triumphs and terrors in the first and
second World Wars, our techno-scientific democracies necessitated that
publics continue to fund basic science. By the Cold War, they also needed a
baseline understanding of science. Science communication set out to
establish a new standard of public knowledge about science so that publics
could competently engage information with a scientific component. The
diffusion-focused Deficit Model for science communication was adopted.
Despite decades of polemics over the model’s over-simplistic view of
science and publics (Bauer, 2016), the ‘deficit concept' remains a staple
science communication model even today. Scholars have attempted to explain
the resilience of the model (Cortessa 2016; Simis, Madden, Cacciatore, and
Yeo, 2016), but I argue that their accounts leave out a crucial normative
dimension of the issue: the deficit model’s alignment with the value-free
ideal for science.

*Commentator*: Benjamin McMyler, Philosophy, University of Minnesota

The International Postdoc Forum for the Philosophy of Science
<https://cla.umn.edu/mcps/research-programs/colloquia/international-postdoc-forum>
is organized by the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science
<https://cla.umn.edu/mcps> (MCPS). It showcases virtual research
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community members. Presentations are by Zoom webinar. Please join our mailing
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--
Alan C. Love
Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts
<https://cla.umn.edu/news-events/news/alan-love-places-evo-devo-front-and-center>
Distinguished McKnight University Professor
<https://scholarswalk.umn.edu/faculty-awards/mcknight-awards/distinguished>
Department of Philosophy & Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science
University of Minnesota
http://umn.edu/~aclove

*Current Project:* Agency, Directionality, and Function: Foundations for a
Science of Purpose <https://www.biologicalpurpose.org>
*New Paper!* Teleonomy: revisiting a proposed conceptual replacement for
teleology <https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-022-00424-y> (open access)
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