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Conflicting Expert Testimony and the Search for Gravitational Waves

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ben Almassi
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Abstract

How can we make informed decisions about whom to trust given expert disagreement? Can experts on both sides be reasonable in holding conflicting views? Epistemologists have engaged the issue of reasonable expert disagreement generally; here I consider a particular expert dispute in physics, given conflicting accounts from Harry Collins and Allan Franklin, over Joseph Weber's alleged detection of gravitational waves. Finding common ground between Collins and Franklin, I offer a characterization of the gravity wave dispute as both social and evidential. While experimental evidence alone may not have forced resolution of the dispute, there were also credibility-based reasons warranting epistemic trust and distrust. Thus we see how social factors can have evidential significance and how expert disagreement can be reasonable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 76 , Issue 5 , December 2009 , pp. 570 - 584
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I extend my deep appreciation to Arthur Fine, Alison Wylie, Monica Aufrecht, and Negin Almassi for their help in bringing this paper to fruition, and to Allan Franklin and Boaz Miller for their careful and constructive criticism. Earlier drafts were presented at the University of Toronto and to the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science; many thanks to the conference organizers and participants. All errors are mine alone.

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