The DOI matches its Crossref record; 74 of the 77 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Contesting epistemic authority: Conspiracy theories on the boundaries of science
Abstract
Conspiracy theories are immensely popular today, yet in the social sciences they are often dismissed as “irrational,” “bad science,” or “religious belief.” In this study, we take a cultural sociological approach and argue that this persistent disqualification is a form of “boundary work” that obscures rather than clarifies how and why conspiracy theorists challenge the epistemic authority of science. Based on a qualitative study of the Dutch conspiracy milieu, we distinguish three critiques that are motivated by encounters with scientific experts in everyday life: the alleged dogmatism of modern science, the intimate relation of scientific knowledge production with vested interests, and the exclusion of lay knowledge by scientific experts forming a global “power elite.” Given their critique that resonates with social scientific understandings of science, it is concluded that conspiracy theorists compete with (social) scientists in complex battles for epistemic authority in a broader field of knowledge contestation.
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Metadata
- Authors
- Harambam, J., & Aupers, S.
- Affiliations
- Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL)
- KU Leuven (BE)
- Venue
- Public Understanding of Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2014-12-01
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 466-480
- ISSN
- 0963-6625 (ISSN-L)
- 1361-6609
- OpenAlex
- W2066753585
- Cited by
- 328
- References
- 77
- Citations by year
- 2026: 50 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 25 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 44 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 21.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Public Understanding of Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (publishedVersion)
- EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion)
- Lirias (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Education, Healthcare and Sociology Research
- Keywords
- conspiracy theories, epistemic authority, boundary work, science and religion, lay knowledge, scientific expertise, power elite, knowledge contestation
- MeSH terms
- Culture, Delusions, Public Opinion, Science, Knowledge, Trust
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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