Facts and beyond. A political history of science after 1945 - Detailseite

Recent disclosures about studies on the toxicity of fumes funded by car companies have brought debates to Germany which have already been treated by historians of science in the Anglophone world: historians have studied the deliberate making and use of knowledge deemed “scientific” in order to influence public discourse and political decision making.

This course will set off from the monograph “Merchants of doubt,” which analyzes the role of science and industry in the U.S. from the Cold War to the present, across topics such as health (smoking and cancer), the environment (acid rain, ozone hole) and climate change. What role have “facts,” or to be more precise, scientific knowledge, as well as its counterpart, doubt, played in how societies have dealt with these issues? What role did different experts, institutions and the media play? Based on this story, we will explore a number of pertinent questions about the role of the sciences (as well as the humanities) in the present: what might a history of scientific facts look like? What was and is the function of the sciences for democracy? Moreover, are the sciences themselves democratic, or should they be?

Participants should be able to read and discuss texts both in English and in German; please bring a personal copy of the “Merchants of doubt.”

2012. Oreskes & E. M. Conway, Merchants of doubt. How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. London, 2012.

(paperback, please do not use the German translation)