Veritocracy: Truth, Science, and How to Preserve Democracy

(Hardback)

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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 is outside the timescale of politics, it can be an object lesson for political decision-making and constitute one of the branches of democracy. Using the examples of disease prevention and climate change, the book presents demarcation criteria fordistinguishing between real expertise and populist claims and also for distinguishing betweenreal science and contenders for that title that do not deserve the moniker. It also argues that the discipline of economics, as currently constituted, does notdeserve the title of science because it does not seek correspondence truth but instead works in acircular way within its own models without concern for how those models with their assumptionsactually map onto reality. The solution the authors propose veritocracy, a democracy with truth at its heart is incompatible with either left or right totalitarianism.

Author Bio

Harry Collins, FBA, is distinguished research professorof social science at Cardiff University School of Social Sciences, UK.
Robert Evans is reader in sociologyat Cardiff University School of Social Sciences, UK.