Social and Cognitive Diversity in Science: An Epistemic Assessment

The research project contributes to philosophy of science by answering three questions: (1) What are the epistemic benefits of (a) social and (b) cognitive diversity in science? (2) Under what circumstances does (a) social diversity give rise to cognitive diversity, and (b) social/cognitive diversity to epistemically valuable outcomes? (3) How should scientific communities and institutions manage epistemic risks that may be caused by increased social and cognitive diversity? The project contributes to three research programs in the social epistemology of scientific knowledge: modelling and simulation work targeting the division of cognitive labor; case studies on the diversity of social values; and case studies on the diversity of social locations. By bringing the three research programs into a dialogue, the projects produces novel understanding of the epistemic benefits of cognitive and social diversity as well as of the strengths and weaknesses of methods used in social epistemology.