The evidence-based cargo-cult and the de-moralization of (educational) decision-making: A critical reflection

open1noAfter decades of epistemological warnings on the social construction of science, we are witnessing a (renewed) paradigmatic consensus on empiri-cism in (social) sciences and shared trust in evidence-based practices and decision-making. As recent debates on the adoption of pandemic-related norms illustrate, science is invoked to justify policies as if good, justifiable governance should be a value-free, non-discretional corollary of scientific knowledge. Drawing on the recent debate on evidence and normative au-thority in social sciences, this paper brings the focus back to the poetics and politics of scientific knowledge and shows how it needs to hide its quota of arbitrariness to work as a solid base for justifiable decisions and sustain policy makers’ de-moralization of their own decision-making..openL. CaroniaL. Caroni