SRI external seminar: How should social and ethical values influence the practice of climate science?

This seminar will be delivered by Wendy Parker (Durham University).

According to the “value-free ideal”, the internal workings of science should be kept free from the influence of social, ethical, political and personal values (also known as "contextual values"). Today, many philosophers of science reject this view; they argue that it is sometimes appropriate for contextual values to influence choices among methodologies, the collection and characterization of the evidence, decisions about whether to accept or reject hypotheses and more. This talk will survey some of these arguments and consider their implications and applications in the case of climate science. I will discuss not only how contextual values already influence climate science in various ways, but also where there is scope for even more influence.

This is an external seminar organised by the Sustainability Research Institute, Priestley International Centre for Climate, Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy and School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science.