| Title |
Explanatory Judgment, Moral Offense and Value-Free Science
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Review of Philosophy and Psychology, August 2015
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s13164-015-0282-z |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Matteo Colombo, Leandra Bucher, Yoel Inbar |
| Abstract |
A popular view in philosophy of science contends that scientific reasoning is objective to the extent that the appraisal of scientific hypotheses is not influenced by moral, political, economic, or social values, but only by the available evidence. A large body of results in the psychology of motivated-reasoning has put pressure on the empirical adequacy of this view. The present study extends this body of results by providing direct evidence that the moral offensiveness of a scientific hypothesis biases explanatory judgment along several dimensions, even when prior credence in the hypothesis is controlled for. Furthermore, it is shown that this bias is insensitive to an economic incentive to be accurate in the evaluation of the evidence. These results contribute to call into question the attainability of the ideal of a value-free science. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 340 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 55 | 16% |
| United Kingdom | 20 | 6% |
| Spain | 20 | 6% |
| Australia | 8 | 2% |
| Canada | 6 | 2% |
| Germany | 6 | 2% |
| Brazil | 6 | 2% |
| France | 6 | 2% |
| Argentina | 5 | 1% |
| Other | 59 | 17% |
| Unknown | 149 | 44% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 271 | 80% |
| Scientists | 50 | 15% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 11 | 3% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 7 | 2% |
| Unknown | 1 | <1% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 69 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Sweden | 1 | 1% |
| Germany | 1 | 1% |
| Luxembourg | 1 | 1% |
| Canada | 1 | 1% |
| Unknown | 65 | 94% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 14 | 20% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 11 | 16% |
| Student > Bachelor | 8 | 12% |
| Researcher | 7 | 10% |
| Other | 6 | 9% |
| Other | 9 | 13% |
| Unknown | 14 | 20% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 23 | 33% |
| Philosophy | 5 | 7% |
| Social Sciences | 5 | 7% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 4 | 6% |
| Computer Science | 2 | 3% |
| Other | 13 | 19% |
| Unknown | 17 | 25% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 229. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 07 April 2023.
All research outputs
#170,103
of 25,754,670 outputs
Outputs from Review of Philosophy and Psychology
#1
of 481 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#1,735
of 262,451 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Review of Philosophy and Psychology
#1
of 7 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,754,670 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 481 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 262,451 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 7 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them