Scientific language credibility : a philosophical investigation

Abstract FRE

This article discuses difficulties of communicating scientific knowledge.

It argues for the seriousness of those difficulties to the degree that can affect the reliability and credibility of scientific reporting, especially when it comes to reporting to the public.

As I argue in this article, scientific knowledge becomes apt to many kinds of changes when introduced to the public; some of these changes are serious enough to raise questions regarding the authenticity of the scientific content.

In the paper, I explain those difficulties and call to question the philosophical reasons we have to trust scientific public language.

With no doubt, scientific writing is not like any other kind of writing.

The many difficulties that may face any scientist when decides to write, more precisely speaking, when decides to write for the public, causes a problematic kind of change, the change that takes place when the scientific project turns from being an isolated personal effort that takes place in isolated laboratories to a public industry, after the results of this effort are published.

Difficulties of scientific reporting are more related to the process of introducing the scientific research results to the public than being related to the production of the scientific outcomes themselves.

But their mere existence suggests the following questions: does the scientific truth remain the same before and after it is published? If not, what changes take place? And how fundamental these changes can be? Do they justify us suspect the originality of the scientific truth or not? More importantly, to whom do scientists address their work? Is it the scientific society or the common? If it is the first, the question will be: which scientific