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ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the considerable challenge of sourcing expertise and determining which experts to trust. Dissonant information fostered controversy in public discourse and encouraged an appeal to a wide range of social indicators of trustworthiness in order to decide whom to trust. We analyze public discourse on expertise by examining how social indicators inform the reputation of Dr. Didier Raoult, the French microbiologist who rose to international prominence as an early advocate for using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. To comprehend how these indicators came to inform his reputation, we outline Dr. Raoult’s rise to fame based on discourse about hydroxychloroquine. We then discuss why we trust in experts like scientist-practitioners. This is followed by an examination of how social indicators of trust like status, epistemic authority, influence and values have informed Dr. Raoult’s reputation. We conclude with recommendations for how to improve the selection and evaluation of social indicators of trust and reputations. Our aim here, instead of making a claim about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine or Dr. Raoult’s reputation per se, is to outline through this case study how social indicators of trust inform reputation and the challenge they present to evaluating expertise.
Disclosure statement
TM was employed by Strane Innovation. No potential competing interest was reported by the remaining authors.
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes the corona virus disease which first emerged in late 2019 (hence COVID-19). Originating in Wuhan – the largest and most populous city in the Hubei province of central China – COVID-19 took only three months to spread to 114 countries and become formally recognized as a pandemic by the WHO (World Health Organization Citation2020b).
2. ‘Information overload’ occurs in situations where the amount of information is higher than anyone’s information processing capacity, making it more of a hindrance than a help (Bawden and Robinson Citation2020), especially with respect to healthcare (Israa et al. Citation2020).
3. We employ a pluralistic description of ‘the public’ and use the term publics to recognize the diverse identities, experiences and expertise that are found in society. This work discusses publics as grouped by nation (e.g. the United States) and pays special attention to local publics, like those in the south of France.
4. For example, if a certified expert in a certain domain holds totally unreliable positions (e.g. belief in conspiracy theories) in another domain, then we have reasons to lower our threshold of trust in their main area of expertise.
5. For an example of where scientists share their findings with the media, garner acclaim, and rely on colleagues who have the ability to distinguish genuine accounts from distorted ones, see Miller (Citation2009).
6. The unique context of the pandemic resulted in a sharp increase in articles on all subjects being submitted to scientific journals and noticeably pre-prints being posted online before peer review (Else Citation2020).
7. For additional search results like ‘hydroxychloroquine shortage’, around the same time see Kim et al. (Citation2020).
8. The ‘Gilets Jaunes’ movement began in autumn 2019 against green fuel taxes proposed by the French government. The movement rapidly grew to question fiscal policy in reaction to the perceived disconnect between the government and the French middle class.
9. Reports from Australia describe doctors inappropriately prescribing HCQ to themselves and family members (Davey Citation2020).
10. Dr. Bik has also pointed out possible issues in more than 60 other studies by Dr. Raoult (Davey Citation2021).
11. Anderson (Citation2011) lists responses to critics as an indicator of epistemic authority.
12. Unlike other senior researchers, Dr. Raoult is reputed to make himself accessible to young researchers (Sayare Citation2020).
13. Some academics have commented that the fact that Dr. Raoult’s name is on almost every paper published by members of the institute he directs is suspicious as it is practically impossible to contribute significantly to such a large volume of work (Sayare Citation2020).
14. The popular French magazine Paris Match which usually reserves its covers for rock stars and actors, dedicated an April cover to Dr. Raoult (Des Déserts and de Violet Citation2020).
15. Some historically popular epistemic values – like the ‘value-free’ form of objectivity – are impossible and undesirable for science. For more, see the normative challenge to the value-free ideal (Douglas Citation2009).
16. See Kahan et al.’s (Citation2012) research into worldview and the influence it has on the tendency of individuals to form risk perceptions that agree with their values.
17. Though the consequences of values in science are somewhat discussed with respect to science policy (see Elliott and Resnik Citation2014), they have been under-explored with respect to science education and communication (Branch-Smith Citation2019).
18. For other instances of where publics came to assess the trustworthiness of experts based on their commitment to non-epistemic values, see Epstein’s work on AIDS activists who constructed their credibility (Epstein Citation1995).
19. Agreement with consensus alone is not enough of social indicator to signal a trustworthy reputation. Consensus has repeatedly been criticized for representing insular and self-reinforcing conclusions so consensus itself must be examined to see whether it is knowledge-based or otherwise epistemically justified (Miller Citation2013, Citation2019).
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Notes on contributors
T.Y. Branch
T.Y. Branch is a philosopher of science investigating values and their implications for public engagement and trust in science. Her research on values is aimed at addressing normative questions pertaining to how personal, social and political (i.e. non-epistemic) values are used in science communication.
Gloria Origgi
Gloria Origgi is a philosopher based at CNRS in Paris. Her main area of research is social epistemology and philosophy of social science. She is the author of the book REPUTATION: What it is and Why it Matters, (Princeton University Press, 2018).
Tiffany Morisseau
Tiffany Morisseau is a researcher in cognitive psychology. She has mainly worked on the topic of human communication, from the cognitive processing of communicative inferences and the role of intentionality in understanding and appreciating information, to epistemic trust and curiosity.