The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread

by Cailin O'Connor

we would have if decisions about research priorities, methodological protocols, and ethical constraints on science were made via considered and informed deliberation among ideal and representative citizens able to adequately communicate and understand both the relevant science and their own preferences, values, and priorities.75 But as Kitcher is the first to admit, there is a strong dose of utopianism here: well-ordered science is what we get in an ideal society, free of the corrupting forces of self-interest, ignorance, and manipulation. The world we live in is far from this ideal. We may strive for well-ordered science, but it is not what we have. As it stands, matters of crucial public interest—the habitability of huge swaths of our planet; the population’s susceptibility to disease and its exposure to pollutants, toxins, and radiation—are decided in a way that mimics the mechanisms of vulgar democracy without realizing any of its ideals. Before it can influence policy, hard-won knowledge is filtered through a population that cannot evaluate it—and which is easily manipulated. There is no sense in which the people’s preferences and values are well-represented by this system, and no sense in which it is responsive to facts. It is a caricature of democracy. Of course, replacing this system with well-ordered