Commercial Interests and the Erosion of Trust in Science

Abstract

The article examines the idea that commercialized science is a central factor in the erosion of trust in science. I claim that commercial interests have a negative impact on the trustworthiness of science by leading the public to mistakenly trust or distrust scientific results. I identify two mechanisms. First, commercial interests can directly encourage the production of consensus or dissent that is industry friendly but not epistemically reliable. Second, commercial interests support a narrow understanding of trustworthiness that allows the industry to claim that their research is reliable when it is not. A more fine-grained analysis is needed.