Episode description

An exploration of the scientific mindset — such character virtues as curiosity, veracity, attentiveness, and humility to evidence — and its importance for science, democracy, and human flourishing. Exemplary scientists have a characteristic way of viewing the world and their work: their mindset and methods all aim at discovering truths about nature. In An Instinct for Truth, Robert Pennock explores this scientific mindset and argues that what Charles Darwin called “an instinct for truth, knowledge, and discovery” has a tacit moral structure — that it is important not only for scientific excellence and integrity but also for democracy and human flourishing. In an era of “post-truth,” the scientific drive to discover empirical truths has a special value. Taking a virtue-theoretic perspective, Pennock explores curiosity, veracity, skepticism, humility to evidence, and other scientific virtues and vices. Shermer and Pennock discuss:

• the nature of science
• why Intelligent Design creationists are not doing bad science — they’re not doing science at all
• what to do with anomalies not explained by the current paradigm
• the role of outsiders in science
• what scientific training does to develop the virtues of science
• how authority is different from expertise
• when experts pronounce on ideas outside their field
• fraud in science and why it happens
• why scientists are skeptical of UFOs, ESP, bigfoot, and the like
• falsification of a scientific hypothesis vs. positive evidence in support of a scientific hypothesis
• the naturalistic fallacy and the Is-Ought problem, and
• the ethics of autonomous vehicles and the trolley problem.

Robert T. Pennock is University Distinguished Professor of History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science at Michigan State University in the Lyman Briggs College and the Departments of Philosophy and Computer Science and Engineering. He is the author of Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism.

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