The concept of science skepticism was diffused during the Covid-19 pandemic. Epistemic uncertainty and conflicts, the potentially catastrophic effects of non-compliance with state-enforced anti-pandemic restrictions, polarization in public debate, the specter of authoritarian threats and a novel category of actors—science skeptics, anti-vaxxers and Covid-19 denialists/pandemic skeptics—conditioned the situation in which the concept of science skepticism was increasingly mobilized in politics, media and the social sciences.
The contributions to this special collection engage with the concept through analyses that can be grouped under three broad themes. The first theme concerns semantics, i.e. discourses about facticity and its crisis or science skepticism in the public sphere. The second theme revolves around knowledge and includes analyses of counter knolwedge, not/knowing and conspiracy. The third theme engages with the relationship between politics and Wissenschaft (the scientific field).
The collection seeks to illuminate the political function of the concept of science skepticism and its usage, trace the emergence of a research field and analyze the (apparent) phenomenon of science skepticism through empirical studies.