How to Assess the Epistemic Wrongness of Sponsorship Bias? The Case of Manufactured Certainty.

Jon Leefmann

doi:10.3389/frma.2021.599909

Abstract

Although the impact of so-called “sponsorship bias” has been the subject of increased attention in the philosophy of science, what exactly constitutes its epistemic wrongness is still debated. In this paper, I will argue that neither evidential accounts nor social–epistemological accounts can fully account for the epistemic wrongness of sponsorship bias, but there are good reasons to prefer social–epistemological to evidential accounts. I will defend this claim by examining how both accounts deal with a paradigm case from medical epistemology, recently discussed in a paper by Bennett Holman. I will argue that evidential accounts cannot adequately capture cases of sponsorship bias that involve the manufacturing of certainty because of their neutrality with respect to the role of non-epistemic values in scientific practice. If my argument holds, it further highlights the importance of integrating social and ethical concerns into epistemological analysis, especially in applied contexts. One can only properly grasp sponsorship bias as an epistemological problem if one resists the methodological tendency to analyze social, ethical, and epistemological issues in isolation from each other.

Highlights

Reviewed by: Nicola Mößner, RWTH Aachen University, Germany Caroline S
Had researchers taken into consideration evidence about the conditions under which the decision for the endpoint was taken, they would not have been justified in accepting the background belief B that the ventricular extra beats (VEBs) suppression hypothesis was true and that VEB suppression represented a suitable endpoint for determining the therapeutic effects of the drugs
The advantages and disadvantages of these accounts were illuminated by applying them to a paradigmatic case of sponsorship the one-sided funding of friendly research violated the requirement to give equal consideration to different perspectives

Summary

Introduction

Reviewed by: Nicola Mößner, RWTH Aachen University, Germany Caroline S. I will argue that evidential accounts cannot adequately capture cases of sponsorship bias that involve the manufacturing of certainty because of their neutrality with respect to the role of non-epistemic values in scientific practice.

Results

Conclusion