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To give just one example, if you are a naturalist, you must believe that at some point in the past, life was born of non-living substances (that is, the spontaneous generation of life took place). Many scientific experiments have been conducted over the centuries to test the hypothesis that spontaneous generation could occur, and each of them has led to the same conclusion: in nature, life comes only from life. No matter what scientists have tried in a lab to bring non-living material to life, it still doesn`t stay alive.3 If you are rational and follow the evidence to its logical conclusion, you will come to the conclusion that in the universe (in nature), life cannot be born of non-life. However, if he can`t stand the evidence and rather irrationally believes that life can come from non-life despite the evidence, he clings to a blind belief in doing so. There is not a single example of nature in which it has been shown that life comes from non-life. Everyone believes in something. However, blind faith means believing in something without proof. Everyone on the planet has faith, but having blind faith is irrational by definition: drawing conclusions without sufficient evidence.1 The faith/trust I have in the laws of science is not blind; It is based on a mountain of evidence that has formed over many years of faith-building behavior on their part. Christianity is not built on blind faith, but on evidence-based faith, and God requires that the Christian faith be such.2 However, naturalists have blind faith in several events that would be necessary if evolution is true. Sheila Jasanoff: Yes, thank you for saying it that way. And to some extent, of course, faith, maybe yes, but blindly, ideally no. Blind when it comes to practicing justice, so that people are not discriminated against unfavorably.

But not in terms of what you accept in faith. I mean, it was a central idea of the Enlightenment that we all like to believe in, that you shouldn`t have blind faith. You shouldn`t take things on authority alone. Certainly not on requests for authority. That is, you should always ask the first question: What is behind this authority? I think my caveat is something that people in my field of science, technology and society widely share. This science itself is a social institution. It is not immune to societal pressures. Someone funds science, someone executes it. It`s a competitive field, people have ambitions, people have desires. Sometimes people do bad things and it`s also incomplete. It is always temporary. It`s always about walking forward or walking in some directions and maybe not in others.

So it`s up to us, it`s important, that we at least ask ourselves where the science that we should respect comes from. What questions should science itself answer and which ones have not addressed it in a certain sense? I think there is a broad consensus in our society in the United States and probably in many others around the world that the issues that are raised are perhaps the most important in the minds of scientists. And they sometimes follow conventional wisdom. This is the hot topic of the day now, so there will be a lot of money for it, but maybe not for other things. Overall, we have tended to look for causal explanations for the phenomena we see that cause climate change, but less about what the effects will be and how they will quietly affect different communities. Jury instruction for intentional blindness is sometimes referred to as an “ostrich instruction.” A famous example of rejecting such a defense occurred in In re Aimster Copyright Litigation,[2] in which the defendants argued that file exchange technology was designed to have no way of monitoring the contents of outsourced files. They suggested that their inability to monitor users` activities meant that they could not contribute to copyright infringement by users. The court ruled that this was intentional blindness on the part of the defendant and would not constitute a defense against a claim for contributory damages. In United States v. Jewell, the Court held that the evidence of intentional ignorance met the requirement of knowledge of the criminal possession and importation of drugs. [1]: 225 In a number of cases in the United States of America, persons carrying packages containing illicit drugs claimed that they had never asked what the contents of the packages were and therefore did not have the necessary intention to violate the law.

These defenses failed because the courts quickly determined that the defendant should have known what was included in the package and showed criminal recklessness in not discovering the contents of the package. [Citation needed] In particular, this rule has always only been applied to independent couriers and has never been used to hold larger services considered joint carriers (e.g. FedEx, United Parcel Service or the U.S. Postal Service) responsible for the contents of the packages they deliver. Intentional blindness is a term used in the law to describe a situation in which a person tries to avoid civil or criminal liability for an illegal act by intentionally ignoring the facts that would make them responsible or involved. In United States v. Jewell, the Court held that the evidence of intentional ignorance met the requirement of knowledge of the criminal possession and importation of drugs. [1]: 225 A second project is being carried out hand in hand with the Harvard Data Science Initiative HDSI. This is a project to study trust in science because, as we have discussed, this is a time when there is a lot of fuss about how the public has lost confidence in science.

One way to think about this is that we should make science more skeptical, get better controls in data management systems so that people trust those systems. They know they can`t be hacked, they know their secrets will be safe. That we`re not going to have another Cambridge Analytica scandal where people get into the personal files of hundreds of thousands of people and influence the way they think about politics and issues like that. This project seeks to take advantage of the great diversity of work at Harvard, develop its policy relevance, and integrate it in a sense, so that Harvard itself emerges as a hub for strong and leading reflection on the vast societal problem of trust in science during the phase of the revolution in which we find ourselves. 1) n. intentionally dishonest act by failing to comply with legal or contractual obligations, deceiving others, entering into an agreement without the intention or means to fulfill it, or violating basic standards of honesty in one`s dealings with others. Most states recognize what is known as an “implicit pact of good faith and fair trade” violated by malicious acts for which a lawsuit for violation can be brought (just as one could sue for breach of contract). The issue of bad faith can be raised as a defence to a contract lawsuit. (2) adj. If there is bad faith, a transaction is called a “bad faith” contract or an “bad faith” offer. Thoko Moyo: But why not? I mean, you argue that blind faith is likely, if I hear you correctly, that blind faith in science is probably as bad as ignoring scientists. Well, you can`t translate what Taiwan is doing, what the United States is doing.

I mean, we are talking about differences in scale, geographical differences, et cetera, et cetera. But overall, I think you can say that we didn`t focus so much on society and the interventions needed there, but on the vaccine and the virus. Well, I think if we had done that, it would have been important to take the company with us. You can`t just tell people overnight, take your kids out of school, don`t go to your workplace. You may be without a paycheck and we don`t know what you`re going to do. Unfortunately, if your insurance was job-related, you don`t have it. A whole series of consequences that came overnight when we responded. But we didn`t tell people, “This is how we take care of you. Don`t be afraid. Go out and isolate yourself. Understand that there will be painful periods. But we, as a government, will be behind you and we will take care of you in one way or another.

I don`t think it`s a proposal from either of them. From the STS perspective, my field would tell you that hybrid approaches, that it`s usually a better long-term suggestion not to put all your eggs in one basket. From my own work, we learn a lot about how other companies with varying degrees of success have overcome the same thing and solved the same problems. But the relevance is very clear because we can say that there are typologies of answers here, and here are some ways that have shown that they work, and others that work less well. One very specific thing I`m going to say is that in the 18 countries we`re looking at, this is the only country where wearing a mask has become an article of faith. Do you believe in science or do you not believe in science? In most other countries, citizens have accepted that wearing a mask has a depressing effect on the transmission of the disease.