Conference on

Trust, Expert Opinion and Policy

O’Brien Science Centre

University College Dublin

August 31-September 2, 2017

Programme

Thursday August 31

9.30-10.00 Registration and Welcome. UCD O’Brien Science Centre

Parallel Session 1. The Nature of Trust. Lynch Theater

Chair: Elmar Geir Unnsteinsson (UCD and WEXD)

• 10.00-10.30 Aisling Crean (University of Glasgow) “What do reactive attitudes tell us about trust?”
• 10.30-11.00 Jaime Edwards (University of Chicago) “Just Because They Say It Doesn’t Make It So: On Group Consensus”
• 11.00-11.30 Coffee Break
• 11.30-12.00 Katherine O’Donnell (UCD) “Trust, Mistrust and Distrust: the Role of the Future in Gaining Trust”
• 12.00-12.30Anna Bortolan (UCD) “Self-trust and Epistemic Experience”

Parallel Session 2. Trust, Experts, and Disagreement. Room H 1.51

Chair: Nick Hughes (UCD and WEXD)

• 10.00-10.30 Erin Nash (Durham University) “Testimony, Trust, and Second-Order Evidence”
• 10.30-11.00 Shane Ryan (Nazarbayev University) “Trust, Experts, and the Epistemic Environmentalism”

11.00-11.30 Coffee Break

• 11.30-12.00 Erich Witte (University of Hamburg) and Frank Zenker (Lund University) “Expert disagreement exceeding measurement uncertainty is unreasonable”
• 12.00-12.30 Isaac Choi (Yale) "Trusting Experts: Two Problematic Views and an Escape from Skepticism."

Parallel Session 3. The Erosion of Trust. Room E. 119 35

Chair: Aine Mahon (UCD, School of Education)

• 10.00-10.30 Felix Bräuer (Humboldt University Berlin) “Testimony, Epistemic Communities, and Practical Risks”
  • 10.30-11.00 Jan-Jonathan Bok (Cambridge) “Science on Trial: The Politics of Expertise and Social Behaviour after the L’Aquila Earthquake
  • 11.00-30 Coffee Break
  • 11.30-12.00 Paul Giladi (University of Sheffield/UCD) “The War against Experts and the Reification of National Identity”
  • 12.00-12.30 Nikolas Kirby (Oxford) “The People’s Trust: Trust, Distrust and Obligation”

12.30-2.00 Lunch (registration continues)

Panel 1. Trust in Politics. Lynch Theater

Chair: Imelda Maher (UCD, School of Law)

• 2.00-20 Imelda Maher (UCD) Trust in Politics: Setting the Scene
• 2.20-3.00 Attracta Ingram (University College Dublin) “Political Trust”
• 3.00-3.40 W.G. van der Meer (University of Amsterdam) “Going back to the well: Economics, Elections, and Trust in Politics”
• 3.40- 4.20 Gloria Origgi (CNRS – Institut Nicod – Paris) “Trust in experts, truth and authority: some elements of a political epistemology”

4.30- 4.55 Coffee Break

5.00 Award of the Ulysses Medal to Professor Onora O’Neill, followed by Keynote Address 1. Lynch Theater

Onora O’Neill (University of Cambridge)
"Linking Trust to Trustworthiness”

Chair: Maria Baghramian (UCD School of Philosophy and WEXD)

6.30-7.30 Reception

Friday September 1

9.00 am – 1.00 am Parallel Session 4. Trust in Economics. Lynch Theater

Conveners: Don Ross (University College Cork) and Carlo Martini (University of Helsinki)

• 9.30 Carlo Martini (University of Helsinki) "Measuring public trust in economics"
• 10.00 Cormac Mac Fhionnlaoich (UCD) “Lessons from Nobel Prize Winners in Economics”
• 10.30 Coffee Break
• 11.00 Ashley Lait & Alvin Birdi, (Economics Network & University of Bristol) “Economic literacy and trust in economics: evidence from a national survey”
• 11.30 Ben Trubody (University of Gloucestershire) “Mature and Immature Expertise: How Conceptual Inadequacies Can lead to the Undermining of Public Trust in Economics”
• 12.00 Don Ross (University College Cork) “Why economists are most trustworthy when the general public isn't watching?”

Parallel Session 5. Trust in Science. Room H 1.51

Chair: Mikio Akagi (TCU and WEXD)

• 9.00 Michael Stoeltzner (University of South Carolina) “Ceteris paribus Laws, Epistemic Reliability and Epistemic Trust in Applied Science”
• 9.30 Tina Sikka (Newcastle University) “Feminist Epistemology and Trust in Climate Modelling”
• 10.00 Jon Leefmann and Steffen Lesle (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg )

“Knowledge from scientific expert testimony without epistemic trust”

• 10.30 Coffee Break
• 11.00 Haris Shekeris (University of Grenoble) “Trust in Science, Wicked problems and Democracy”
• 11.30 David Harker (East Tennessee State University) “Science isn’t a democracy, but consensus is (higher-order) evidence nonetheless”
• 12.00 Cormac O' Raifeartaigh (Waterford Institute of Technology) “Trust, Uncertainty and Society: The Public Perception of Scientific Uncertainty in the Climate Science Debate”
• 12.30 Leah Henderson (University of Groningen) “Living in Different Worlds: the paradigm-dependence of trust”

1.00-2.00 Lunch

Panel 2. The Epistemology of Trust. Lynch Theater

Chair: James O’Shea, (UCD School of Philosophy)

• 2.00-2.40 Adam Carter (University of Glasgow) “Trust and Competence”
• 2.40-3.20 Ruth Boeker (UCD) “David Hume and Thomas Reid on fidelity to promises and trust”
• 3.20-4.00 Edward Nettle (UCD and WEXD) “On Agency and Trust in the Epistemology of Testimony”

4.00- 4.20 Coffee Break

Panel 3. Trust in Data. Lynch Theater

Chair: Tatjana von Solodkoff (UCD School of Philosophy)

• 4.20-5.00 Wendy Parker (University of Durham) "Traceability, Expert Opinion and Trust in Climate Change Assessments".
• 5.00- 5.40 Judith Simon (University of Hamburg) “Trust in Data”

Keynote address 2. Lynch Theater

5.45 Susan Owens (University of Cambridge)

“Trust, Expertise and the Environment”

Chair: Anna Davies (Trinity College Dublin)

7.00 Conference Dinner

Saturday September 2

Parallel Session 6. Broken Trust and Credibility. Lynch Theater

Chair:Thomas Hodgson (UCD)

• 9.30 Carrie Figdor (University of Iowa) “Trust me: News, Credibility Deficits, and Balance”
• 10.00 Nick Tebben (Towson University) & John Waterman (University of New England) “Recognizing Expertise: An Epistemic Collective Action Problem”
• 10.30 Coffee Break
• 11.00 James Butler (Boston College) "Broken Trust: A Gadamarian Take on Experts, Choice, and a Return to the Humanities"
  • 11.30 Patrizia Setola (UCD) “The use of experts to manipulate consumers' trust: a case study from the animal industry”
  • 12.00 C. Thi Nguyen (Utah Valley University) “Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles

Parallel Session 7. Trust, Public Discourse and Ethics. Room H 1.51

Chair: Finnur Dellsén (UCD and WEXD)

• 09.00 Edward E. Spence (Charles Sturt University) “Trust in Information and its Communication: A Normative Account”
• 9.30 Christopher Cowley (University College Dublin) “Trust in institutions, trust in intimate friends, and the risk of self-deception”
• 10.00 Henry Henrysson (University of Iceland) “Is the Moral Philosopher an Expert? A Recent Icelandic Experience”
• 10.30 Coffee Break
• 11.00 Oliver Feeney (University College Galway) “Genuine participation in participant-centred research initiatives: the rhetoric and the potential reality”
• 11.30 Katherine Furman (Durham University) “Policy-Making and the Duty to Gather Evidence”
• 12.00 Lily Eva Frank (Eindhoven University of Technology) “Do as I say, not as I do: What can an obese cardiologist can tell us about trust in ethical expertise?”

12.30-1.30 Report on the findings by WEXD. Lynch Theater

James Beebe, Maria Baghramian, Luke Drury, Finnur Dellsén

(When Experts Disagree Research Project)

1.30-2.30 Lunch

Panel 4. Trust in Science. Lynch Theater

Chair: Charlotte Blease (DIAS and WEXD)

• 2.30 Etienne Parizot (Paris Diderot University) “Trust and doubt: a subtle balance between two essential driving forces of science”
• 3.10 Rafael Alves Batista (University of Oxford) “Science, scientific consensus, and public perception of science”
• 3.50 Shane Bergin “The Scientist as an Advocate” (University College Dublin)

4.30-5.00 Coffee Break

5.00-6.30 Closing Keynote Address. Lynch Theater

Patrick Honohan (Trinity College Dublin)

"Taking Credit: Trust and Transactions in Economics"

Chair: Luke Drury (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and WEXD)

6.30 Conference Close

The conference is organised by Professor Maria Baghramian (School of Philosophy, University College Dublin) and Professor Luke Drury (School of Cosmic Physics, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) as part of their Irish Research Council Project

When Experts Disagree

The organisers gratefully acknowledge the general support of

The Irish Research Council

UCD School of Philosophy

UCD Institute for Discovery

"The Trinity of Policy-Making"

The Society for Applied Philosophy

Failte Ireland