Veritocracy
Truth, Science, and How to Preserve Democracy
Veritocracy
Truth, Science, and How to Preserve Democracy
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Description
Western democracies are suffering from populism, verging on fascism, because of the erosion of truth. This book argues that truth can grow out of citizenship education in how science really works, allied with an explicit culture of truth among politicians.
While science operates outside the timescale of politics, it can serve as an object lesson for political decision-making under democracy. Using the examples of disease prevention and climate change, Harry Collins and Robert Evans show why citizens would be wise to trust the substantive findings of science as well as its moral culture. They also present demarcation criteria for distinguishing between real expertise and populist claims and also for distinguishing between real science and contenders for that title that do not deserve the moniker. For example, they argue that the discipline of economics, as currently constituted, does not deserve the title of science because it does not seek correspondence truth but instead works in a circular way within its own models without concern for how those models with their assumptions actually map onto reality.
The solution the authors propose – veritocracy, a democracy with truth at its heart – is incompatible with either left or right totalitarianism and with meaningless slogans. To establish veritocracies we must start with a new approach to science education.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Truth. political culture and alternative descriptions of science
Chapter 2: Evolution of our understanding of science and democratisation
Chapter 3: The fractal model of society
Chapter 4: Defusing the tension between elite institutions the public and society
Chapter 5: Virtual diversity and universalism
Chapter 6: Economics and ubiquitous economics: How not to be a fulcrum science
Chapter 7: Is there a chance of changing the culture?
References
Index
Product details
| Published | May 28 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 232 |
| ISBN | 9781978759657 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 11 b&w |
| Series | Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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