Should We Double Down on Truth? The Promise and Risks of Collective Sense-making with Dr. Noah Weeth Feinstein (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

The final talk in the Lab’s Spring 2021 Learning in a ‘Post-Truth’ World series took place Thursday, April 22 and featured the University of Wisconsin- Madison’s Dr. Noah Weeth Feinstein.

In 2020, Noah Weeth Feinstein and David Waddington argued for shifting the balance of science education away from individual truth-judgments and toward collective sense-making. How does that argument hold up? In this talk, Dr. Weeth Feinstein will review their argument and discuss both the promise and risks of wading deeper into the social world and engaging directly with messy problems in messy practical contexts. Dr. Weeth Feinstein concludes by asking whether concepts like value and appropriate respect offer more fruitful territory for science education than the familiar framing of truth and trust.

Watch a recording of the talk below.