October 18, 2014, by Andrew Gibson

Research and values: Professor Steve Rayner

The below video features a keynote speech from Professor Steve Rayner, the James Martin Professor of Science and Civilization at Oxford University’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography and Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, where he also co-directs the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities and the Oxford Geoengineering Programme.

The talk explores the epistemic cultures of the sciences, social sciences and humanities and the relationship between them. Using the issue of climate change and geoengineering, it highlights the epistemic and corresponding ethical fault line that runs through the social sciences leading to valorization of contrasting modes of inquiry and ideas of what counts as evidence. It also raises the broader question of why and how non-experts in any field choose to give or deny credibility to experts.

What do you think? Please use the comment section below to pick up on any points…

Click image for video

———————————

• A note on etiquette. First comments need to be ‘authorised’ by the blog owners as a way to register you onto the site. Please use your real name, unless there is a good reason not to. From then on, comments will not be moderated, except in the case of offensive or uncivilised comments/tone.
• If you want write a guest post for this site, please send the text for uploading to Andrew Gibson or Cornelia Lawson.
• Background information, including abstracts, profiles and posts on other blog sites, can be found on the conference website.

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Google+
• Share on LinkedIn