Scientific realism, scientific practice, and science communication: an empirical investigation of academics and science communicators

Pils, Raimund and Schoenegger, Philipp (2024) Scientific realism, scientific practice, and science communication: an empirical investigation of academics and science communicators. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 105. pp. 85-98. ISSN 0039-3681

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Abstract

We argue that the societal consequences of the scientific realism debate, in the context of science-to-public communication are often overlooked and careful theorizing about it needs further empirical groundwork. As such, we conducted a survey experiment with 130 academics (from physics, chemistry, and biology) and 137 science communicators. We provided them with an 11-item questionnaire probing their views of scientific realism and related concepts. Contra theoretical expectations, we find that (a) science communicators are generally more inclined towards scientific antirealism when compared to scientists in the same academic fields, though both groups show an inclination towards realism and (b) academics who engage in more theoretical work are not less (or more) realist than experimentalists. Lastly, (c), we fail to find differences with respect to selective realism but find that science communicators are significantly less epistemically voluntarist compared to their academic counterparts. Overall, our results provide first empirical evidence on the views of scientists and science communicators on scientific realism, with some results running contra to the theoretical expectations, opening up new empirical and theoretical research directions.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method Management
Subjects:	Q Science L Education
Date Deposited:	24 May 2024 18:03
Last Modified:	14 Jun 2024 23:42
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/123643

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