Desinformación científica y engaño desorientador
Contenido principal del artículo
Resumen
Defiendo que el engaño desorientador, entendido como engaño por implicatura, permite identificar una modalidad específica de desinformación científica que suele pasar inadvertida. Propongo una caracterización que lo distingue de la mentira por su estructura intencional y pragmática y muestro su instanciación en tres dominios. En la comunicación de ensayos clínicos, la presentación exclusiva de reducciones relativas de riesgo induce sobreestimaciones prácticas frente a diferencias absolutas pequeñas. En la historia pública del tabaco, la fabricación de duda se apoyó en enunciados verdaderos pero fragmentarios que desplazaron los estándares de prueba hacia una exigencia inalcanzable. En el cherry picking, el engaño desorientador produce inferencias de suficiencia y representatividad que no se siguen del conjunto total de la evidencia; ilustro el punto con ensayos de antidepresivos, el llamado hiato del calentamiento y el cambio de desenlaces en ensayos. Con ello, se ofrece un marco para reconocer, analizar y desactivar esta forma extendida de desinformación en ciencia.
Detalles del artículo
Datos de los fondos
-
Universidad de Antioquia
Números de la subvención 2023-59396
Referencias
Adler, Jonathan E. 1997. “Lying, Deceiving, or Falsely Implicating”. The Journal of Philosophy 94 (9): 435–52. https://doi.org/10.2307/2564617
Benestad, Rasmus E., Dana Nuccitelli, Stephan Lewandowsky, et al. 2016. “Learning from Mistakes in Climate Research”. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 126 (3–4): 699–703. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1597-5
Biddle, Justin B., y Anna Leuschner. 2015. “Climate Skepticism and the Manufacture of Doubt: Can Dissent in Science Be Epistemically Detrimental?” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (3): 261–78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-014-0101-x
Brandt, Allan M. 2012. “Inventing Conflicts of Interest: A History of Tobacco Industry Tactics”. American Journal of Public Health 102 (1): 63–71. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2011.300292
Carson, Thomas L. 2006. “The Definition of Lying”. Nous 40 (2): 284–306. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0029-4624.2006.00610.x
Chan, An-Wen, Asbjørn Hróbjartsson, Mette T. Haahr, Peter C. Gøtzsche, y Douglas G. Altman. 2004. “Empirical Evidence for Selective Reporting of Outcomes in Randomized Trials: Comparison of Protocols to Published Articles”. JAMA 291 (20): 2457–65. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.291.20.2457
Covey, Judith. 2007. “A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Presenting Treatment Benefits in Different Formats”. Medical Decision Making 27 (5): 638–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272989X07306783
Doll, R., y A. B. Hill. 1950. “Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung”. British Medical Journal 2 (4682): 739–48. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.2.4682.739
Fernandez Pinto, Manuela. 2017. “To Know or Better Not to”. Science & Technology Studies 30 (2): 53–72. https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.61030
______. 2019. “Scientific ignorance: Probing the limits of scientific research and knowledge production”. THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science 34 (2): 195–211. https://doi.org/10.1387/theoria.19329
Frankfurt, Harry. 2006. “Sobre El Concepto de Bullshit”. En La Importancia de Lo Que Nos Preocupa. Ensayos Filosóficos, traducido por Verónica Inés Weinstabl y Servanda María de Hagen. Katz.
Freeman, Alexandra L. J. 2019. “How to Communicate Evidence to Patients”. Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin 57 (8): 119–24. https://doi.org/10.1136/dtb.2019.000008
Gigerenzer, Gerd, Wolfgang Gaissmaier, Elke Kurz-Milcke, Lisa M. Schwartz, y Steven Woloshin. 2007. “Helping Doctors and Patients Make Sense of Health Statistics”. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 8 (2): 53–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2008.00033.x
Goldacre, Ben. 2013. Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients. Faber & Faber.
Grice, H. P. 1975. “Logic and Conversation”. En Speech Acts, editado por Peter Cole y Jerry L. Morgan. Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004368811_003
Grimaltos, Tobies, y Sergi Rosell. 2021. Mentiras y engaños. Una investigación filosófica. 1a. edición. Cátedra.
Hume, David. 2004. Investigación sobre el entendimiento humano. Traducido por Vicente Sanfélix y Carmen Ors Marqués. Istmo.
Hwang, Woo Suk, Sung Il Roh, Byeong Chun Lee, et al. 2005. “Patient-Specific Embryonic Stem Cells Derived from Human SCNT Blastocysts”. Science 308 (5729): 1777–83. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1112286
Hwang, Woo Suk, Young June Ryu, Jong Hyuk Park, et al. 2004. “Evidence of a Pluripotent Human Embryonic Stem Cell Line Derived from a Cloned Blastocyst”. Science 303 (5664): 1669–74. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1094515
Kakuk, Péter. 2009. “The Legacy of the Hwang Case: Research Misconduct in Biosciences”. Science and Engineering Ethics 15 (4): 545–62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-009-9121-x
Karl, Thomas R., Anthony Arguez, Boyin Huang, et al. 2015. “Possible Artifacts of Data Biases in the Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus”. Science 348 (6242): 1469–72. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa5632
Kennedy, Donald. 2006. “Editorial Retraction”. Science 311 (5759): 335–335. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1124926
Kupfer, Joseph. 1982. “The moral presumption against lying”. The Review of Metaphysics 36 (1): 103–26.
Lewandowsky, Stephan, James S. Risbey, y Naomi Oreskes. 2015. “On the Definition and Identifiability of the Alleged ‘Hiatus’ in Global Warming”. Scientific Reports 5 (1): 16784. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep16784
Lewandowsky, Stephan, James S. Risbey, y Naomi Oreskes. 2016. “The ‘Pause’ in Global Warming: Turning a Routine Fluctuation into a Problem for Science”. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 97 (5): 723–33. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00106.1
Medhaug, Iselin, Martin B. Stolpe, Erich M. Fischer, y Reto Knutti. 2017. “Reconciling Controversies about the ‘Global Warming Hiatus’”. Nature 545 (7652): 41–47. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22315
Meibauer, Jörg. 2005. “Lying and Falsely Implicating”. Journal of Pragmatics 37 (9): 1373–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2004.12.007
Mirsky, Yisroel, y Wenke Lee. 2022. “The Creation and Detection of Deepfakes: A Survey”. ACM Computing Surveys 54 (1): 1–41. https://doi.org/10.1145/3425780
Moberger, Victor. 2020. “Bullshit, Pseudoscience and Pseudophilosophy”. Theoria 86 (5): 595–611. https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12271
Oreskes, Naomi, y Erik M. Conway. 2010. Merchants of doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. 1st U.S. ed. Bloomsbury Press.
Popper, Karl R. 2017. La lógica de la investigación científica. Traducido por Víctor Sánchez de Zavala. Tecnos.
Primoratz, Igor. 1984. “Lying and the ‘Methods of Ethics’:” International Studies in Philosophy 16 (3): 35–57. https://doi.org/10.5840/intstudphil198416353
Proctor, Robert N., y Londa L. Schiebinger. 2008. Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. Stanford University Press.
Ridker, Paul M, Eleanor Danielson, Francisco A.H. Fonseca, et al. 2008. “Rosuvastatin to Prevent Vascular Events in Men and Women with Elevated C-Reactive Protein”. New England Journal of Medicine 359 (21): 2195–207. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa0807646
Rivera-Novoa, Angel. 2022. “Argumentos ad hominem y epistemología de las virtudes: cómo atacar a la persona sin cometer una falla lógica o moral en el intento”. THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science 37 (3): 357–377. https://doi.org/10.1387/theoria.23046
Rodriguez, Nathan J. 2024. “Anti-Vaxxers: Wakefield and the Autism Scare”. En Pandemic Resilience, editado por David M. Berube. Risk, Systems and Decisions. Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-74062-6_6
Romero-Fresco, Pablo, y Nazaret Fresno. 2023. “The accuracy of automatic and human live captions in English”. Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies 22 (diciembre): 114–33. https://doi.org/10.52034/lans-tts.v22i.774
Santer, Benjamin D., Susan Solomon, Frank J. Wentz, et al. 2017. “Tropospheric Warming Over The Past Two Decades”. Scientific Reports 7 (1): 2336. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02520-7
Saul, Jennifer Mather. 2015. Lying, Misleading, and What Is Said: An Exploration in Philosophy of Language and in Ethics. Oxford University Press.
Shishehbor, Mehdi H., y Stanley L. Hazen. 2009. “JUPITER to Earth: A Statin Helps People with Normal LDL-C and High Hs-CRP, but What Does It Mean?” Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine 76 (1): 37–44. https://doi.org/10.3949/ccjm.75a.08105
Shore, David y Singer, Byan. 2004. House. Episode 1, “Pilot”, produced by Paul Attanasio, written by David Shore. Aired noviembre 16, on Heel and Toe Films; Shore Z Productions; Bad Hat Harry Productions; NBC Universal Television Studio.
Sokal, Alan D. 1996. “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”. Social Text 46/47: 217–52.
Sokal, Alan D., y J. Bricmont. 1998. Intellectual Impostures: Postmodern Philosophers’ Abuse of Science. Profile Books.
Sorensen, Roy. 2007. “Bald‐faced Lies! Lying without the Intent to Deceive”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (2): 251–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0114.2007.00290.x
The Editors of The Lancet. 2010. “Retraction—Ileal-Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Non-Specific Colitis, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children”. The Lancet 375 (9713): 445. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60175-4
Tobacco Industry Research Committee. 1954. “A frank statement to cigarette smokers”. The New York Times, enero 4.
Turner, Erick H., Annette M. Matthews, Eftihia Linardatos, Robert A. Tell, y Robert Rosenthal. 2008. “Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy”. New England Journal of Medicine 358 (3): 252–60. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa065779
Turri, Angelo, y John Turri. 2016. “Lying, Uptake, Assertion, and Intent”. International Review of Pragmatics 8 (2): 314–33. https://doi.org/10.1163/18773109-00802006
Turri, John. 2021. “Objective Falsity Is Essential to Lying: An Argument from Convergent Evidence”. Philosophical Studies 178 (6): 2101–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01525-9
Vaccarino, Viola, J. Douglas Bremner, y Mary E. Kelley. 2009. “JUPITER: A Few Words of Caution”. Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes 2 (3): 286–88. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.109.850404
Wakefield, Aj, Sh Murch, A Anthony, et al. 1998. “RETRACTED: Ileal-Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Non-Specific Colitis, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children”. The Lancet 351 (9103): 637–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(97)11096-0
Weber, E. H., David J. Murray, Helen E. Ross, y E. H. Weber. 2020. E. H. Weber on the Tactile Senses. 2nd ed. Taylor & Francis Group.
Williams, Bernard. 2010. Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy. Princeton University Press. http://VH7QX3XE2P.search.serialssolutions.com/?V=1.0&L=VH7QX3XE2P&S=JCs&C=TC0000443610&T=marc&tab=BOOKS
Wynder, Ernest L. 1950. “Tobacco Smoking as a Possible Etiologic Factor in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma; a Study of 684 Proved Cases”. Journal of the American Medical Association 143 (4): 329–36. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1950.02910390001001
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6793-0307