Compte rendu de Harry Collins et Robert Evans. "Why democracies need science" (Polity Press, 2017, 200)

Abstract

Résumé du livre : We live in times of increasing public distrust of the main institutions of modern society. Experts, including scientists, are suspected of working to hidden agendas or serving vested interests. The solution is usually seen as more public scrutiny and more control by democratic institutions \textendash experts must be subservient to social and political life. In this book, Harry Collins and Robert Evans take a radically different view. They argue that, rather than democracies needing to be protected from science, democratic societies need to learn how to value science in this new age of uncertainty. By emphasizing that science is a moral enterprise, guided by values that should matter to all, they show how science can support democracy without destroying it and propose a new institution \textendash The Owls \textendash that can mediate between science and society and improve technological decision-making for the benefit of all.