Science Denial: Post-Truth or Post-Trust?

Over the past couple of decades, there has been growing concern about the alleged rise of various forms of science denial. But what exactly is science denial? How does it differ from ordinary scientific ignorance? Is it really on the rise? If so, what explain this trend? And what is so concerning about it in the first place? This Element has four goals. Its first (and least ambitious) goal is to is to bring some conceptual clarity by developing a clearer notion of science denial and gaining a better understanding of the concerns raised by the phenomenon it is meant to capture. Its second (and more ambitious) goal is to distinguish among several specific phenomena that are often conflated under the label ‘science denial.’ Its third (and even more ambitious) goal is to argue that none of these specific phenomena warrants all of the concerns that motivate its critics. Its fourth (and most ambitious) goal is to expose the inadequacy of a popular diagnosis of the epistemic malaise afflicting liberal democracies – the post-truth diagnosis – and to sketch an alternative to it – the post-trust diagnosis.