Comment exercer une autorité experte ? Un scientifique confronté aux Sceptiques

Abstract

The primary loyalty of argumentation theory should be to the practical knowledges arguers are exhibiting and thematizing in ordinary argumentative interactions, since such knowledges make the interactions work. In this essay, I show how theorists can learn from practitioners through a close analysis of the argumentologie populaire that emerged in a televised exchange between eminent scientist/communicator Stephen Schneider and an audience of self-described climate sceptics. In part, Schneider proceeds by inviting his audience to join the scientific community. But both Schneider and his audience recognize the limits of this approach; at base, the question is whether laypeople ought to trust scientists’ expertise, and thus also be bound by scientists’ authority. I close by pointing out the ways in which participants' understanding of the appeal to expert authority is more sophisticated than the accounts given by argumentation theorists.

Keywords

• appeal to expert authority
• argumentation
• expertise
• metadiscourse
• science communication
• science-policy interface