Why there’s no such thing as “the” scientific advice

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• Professor Stephen John
• Monday 17 February 2025, 18:00-19:00
• Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Beverley Larner.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, U.K. policy-makers claimed to be “following the science”. Many commentators objected that the government did not live up to this aim. Others worried that policy-makers ought not blindly “follow” science, because this involves an abdication of responsibility. In this talk, I consider a third, even more fundamental concern: that there is no such thing as “the” science. Drawing on the case of adolescent vaccination against Covid-19, I argue that the best that any scientific advisory group can do is to offer a partial perspective on reality. In turn, this has important implications for how we think about science and politics.

This talk is part of the Cambridge Philosophical Society series.

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