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Full Description
Three-fourths of scientific research in the United States is funded by special interests. Many of these groups have specific practical goals, such as developing pharmaceuticals or establishing that a pollutant causes only minimal harm. For groups with financial conflicts of interest, their scientific findings often can be deeply flawed.
To uncover and assess these scientific flaws, award-winning biologist and philosopher of science Kristin Shrader-Frechette uses the analytical tools of classic philosophy of science. She identifies and evaluates the concepts, data, inferences, methods, models, and conclusions of science tainted by the influence of special interests. As a result, she challenges accepted scientific findings regarding risks such as chemical toxins and carcinogens, ionizing radiation, pesticides, hazardous-waste disposal, development of environmentally sensitive lands, threats to endangered species, and less-protective standards for workplace-pollution exposure. In so doing, she dissects the science on which many contemporary scientific controversies turn. Demonstrating and advocating "liberation science," she shows how practical, logical, methodological, and ethical evaluations of science can both improve its quality and credibility -- and protect people from harm caused by flawed science, such as underestimates of cancers caused by bovine growth hormones, cell phones, fracking, or high-voltage wires.
This book is both an in-depth look at the unreliable scientific findings at the root of contemporary debates in biochemistry, ecology, economics, hydrogeology, physics, and zoology -- and a call to action for scientists, philosophers of science, and all citizens.
Contents
Section 1: Conceptual and Logical Analysis
Chapter 1: Speaking Truth to Power: Uncovering Flawed Methods, Protecting Lives and Welfare
Chapter 2: Discovering Dump Dangers: Unearthing Hazards in Hydrogeology
Chapter 3: Hormesis Harms: The Emperor Has No Biochemistry Clothes
Chapter 4: Trading Lives for Money: Compensating Wage Differentials in Economics
Section 2: Heuristic Analysis and Developing Hypotheses
Chapter 5: Learning from Analogy: Extrapolating from Animal Data in Toxicology
Chapter 6: Conjectures and Conflict: A Thought Experiment in Physics
Chapter 7: Being a Disease Detective: Discovering Causes in Epidemiology
Chapter 8: Why Statistics Is Slippery: Easy Algorithms Fail in Biology
Section 3: Methodological Analysis and Justifying Hypotheses
Chapter 9: Releasing Radioactivity: Hypothesis-Prediction in Hydrogeology
Chapter 10: Protecting Florida Panthers: Historical-Comparativist Methods in Zoology
Chapter 11: Cracking Case Studies: Why They Work in Sciences Such As Ecology
Chapter 12: Uncovering Cover-up: Inference to the Best Explanation in Medicine
Section 4: Values Analysis and Scientific Uncertainty
Chapter 13: Value Judgments Can Kill: Expected-Utility Rules in Decision Theory
Chapter 14: Understanding Uncertainty: False Negatives in Quantitative Risk Analysis
Chapter 15: Where We Go from Here: Making Philosophy of Science Practical
