Rethinking evidence in the time of pandemics : scientific vs narrative rationality and medical knowledge practices /
The COVID-19 crisis has transformed the highly specialized issue of what constitutes reliable medical evidence into a topic of public concern and debate. This book interrogates the assumption that evidence means the same thing to different constituencies and in different contexts. Rather than treati...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY :
Cambridge University Press,
2022.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | The COVID-19 crisis has transformed the highly specialized issue of what constitutes reliable medical evidence into a topic of public concern and debate. This book interrogates the assumption that evidence means the same thing to different constituencies and in different contexts. Rather than treating various practices of knowledge as rational or irrational in purely scientific terms, it explains the controversies surrounding COVID-19 by drawing on a theoretical framework that recognizes different types of rationality, and hence plural conceptualizations of evidence. Debates within and beyond the medical establishment on the efficacy of measures such as mandatory face masks are examined in detail, as are various degrees of hesitancy towards vaccines. The authors demonstrate that it is ultimately through narratives that knowledge about medical and other phenomena is communicated to others, enters the public space, and provokes discussion and disagreements. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.-- |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource |
| ISBN: | 9781009030687 100903068X |
| DOI: | 10.1017/9781009030687 |