Fear of Science

The era of mistrust, from creationism to artificial intelligence

Presentazione di libro
Secondary school, University students, Teachers, General public
EXMA

Guest: Enrico Pedemonte

Presented by: Matteo Serra, scientific journalist, INFN Cagliari

The book is a long journey to explore the historical roots of the growing distrust in science (which emerged clearly in the years of Covid-19). The first part (“The past”) focuses on a series of historical examples that explain why distrust towards science has grown over time. The main culprit is “Power” and the use it has made of scientific research. In the second part, the future is represented by Artificial Intelligence (AI), its ability to transform science, indeed to become the only science. The use of AI by technological platforms (which hold a monopoly on it) is not only changing the mechanisms of scientific research but could accentuate collective distrust towards Power. The signs (collective anger) are already evident today.

Enrico Pedemonte

Enrico Pedemonte (1950), Genoese, graduated in Physics, journalist. He was sent to Secolo XIX, editor-in-chief and New York correspondent at Espresso, editor-in-chief at Repubblica, director of Pagina99. He has published “Personal Media” (Bollati Boringhieri, 1998), “Death and resurrection of newspapers (Garzanti, 2010), “Fear of science” (Treccani publisher, 2023 Benedetto Croce prize for non-fiction). Together with Vincenzo Tagliasco he wrote: “Advantages of the democratic boom” (Franco Angeli, 1996) and “Genova per chi” (Trilli editore 2006). He has published two novels: “The Second Life” (Frassinelli, 2018) and “The Last Game” (Rizzoli, 2022).