Over the last three decades, the debate about climate change has involved challenges to the very evidence of change, disagreements about status of models and simulations as scientific evidence, calls for “sound science,” disputes about the contribution of anthropogenic causes, attempts to cast doubt on the integrity and plausibility of forecasts and assessments, and various forms of “solution aversion.”

What are the sources of skepticism about climate change and/or mistrust of climate science?

What processes, mechanisms and dynamics are implicated in provoking and prolonging the debate about climate change?

To what extent are these specific to the climate debate, and to what extent are they representative of a broader mistrust in experts?

What can be done to increase trust in climate science or consensus around appropriate measures or interventions?

Join us for a conversation with these esteemed panelists (Full Bios Here)

• Mike Hulme: Professor of Human Geography at Cambridge University

• Naomi Oreskes: Professor of History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University

• Andrew Revkin: Founding Director of the Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at Columbia University's Earth Institute

• Gil Eyal: Professor of Sociology at Columbia University (moderator)

What are the sources of skepticism about climate change and/or mistrust of climate science? What processes, mechanisms and dynamics are implicated in provoking and prolonging the debate about climate change? To what extent are these specific to the climate debate, and to what extent they are representative of a broader mistrust in experts? What can be done to increase trust in climate science or consensus around appropriate measures or interventions?

We will explore these questions and more with an esteemed panel of social scientists including Paul Edwards, Myanna Lahsen and Peter Weingart. Moderated by Gil Eyal. More information about the panelists is available here.

For those interested in exploring this topic more, a primer featuring concise, accessible and compelling articles from mainstream media outlets is available here.

What is the reception and impact of a COVID-19 vaccine likely to be like? Is the fate of the vaccine already sealed by the public and political tug-of-war over its rapid approval? Are we likely to see the same fault-lines as with the MMR vaccine, or would a COVID-19 vaccine have the potential to change the debate about vaccination? How will the recent U.S. election change the dynamics of how the vaccine is received?

More generally, under what conditions do people tend to trust vaccines? What has worked in the past when it comes to vaccination campaigns, and could potentially work in the future? Does it help to frame the matter not as individual decision but in relation to one’s network of family and friends? What are, conversely, the sources of resistance to vaccines or of vaccine hesitancy? How should a vaccination campaign be framed and organized?

We explore these questions and more with an esteemed panel of practitioners, communication specialists and social scientists including Amanda Cohn (CDC), Rupali Limaye (Johns Hopkins), James Colgrove (Columbia), Jane Zucker (NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene) and Jennifer Reich (University of Colorado).

The pandemic has brought into focus the fraying of relations between experts, policy-makers and relevant publics in liberal democracies. How should social researchers analyze the factors and processes that contribute to this fraying? What insights can be gleaned from comparative analysis, either of liberal democracies, or across the liberal-authoritarian divide? What have we learned about the determinants and nature of trust that can shed light and perhaps guide interventions in the current moment? What are the specific vulnerabilities of different forms of organizing the relations between experts, policy-makers and the public, and how can they be addressed?

We explored these questions and more with an esteemed panel of sociologists specializing in science, knowledge, medicine, public health and expertise including Rogers Brubaker, Stephen Hilgartner, Zeynep Tufekci and Andrew Lakoff. Moderated by Gil Eyal.

More information on the panelists and moderator is available here: http://sawyerseminar.americanassembly...

To help better acquaint people with the core issues at stake, we’ve prepared a short primer, with concise and compelling readings drawn from mainstream media outlets, available here: http://sawyerseminar.americanassembly...

How should modelers communicate the uncertainty inherent in their models without undermining trust? What does it mean to trust a probabilistic forecast? Do models incorporating assumptions about public behavior need to be understood and trusted by the public being modeled? Should modelers try to influence the public and decision-makers or should we be worried that such attempts might backfire and lead to loss of trust? We explored these questions and many more with the help of an esteemed panel of epidemiologists and public health experts. A concise and accessible primer on some of the core tensions around models, policymaking and public sentiment is available here.

NEWSMEN AND SPECTATORS STAND IN FRONT OF THE MAIN GATE OF THE THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION IN MIDDLETOWN, PENN., APRIL 2, 1979.
JACK KANTHAL / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

INCITE and The American Assembly recently received funding from the Mellon foundation to conduct the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar on Trust and Mistrust of Science and Experts. The seminar will bring together scholars from multiple disciplines, engaging the Columbia community and the surrounding public in productive discussion on issues of trust and mistrust, in the form of reading groups, public forums, and workshops. We aim to build this series of conversations among different parts of the university by moving thematically through four orienting cases: (1) rhetoric, risk, and trust in climate science; (2) minority communities’ trust in science; (3) the politics of vaccination; and (4) trust in algorithms. These are subjects where the tensions and difficulties underlying discussions of trust are exposed in stark relief.

The seminar will launch in fall of 2020 and conclude in the spring of 2022. We are currently inviting advanced doctoral students from all Columbia University schools, who are within two years of completing their dissertations, to apply for a 2020/21 graduate fellowship. The deadline for applications is December 15th, 2019, at 5 p.m. For further details and instructions, click below.