Understanding where knowledge comes from, and how it is used, has become one of the defining challenges of modern society. From the spread of public health data to the rise of artificial intelligence, decisions that shape people鈥檚 lives depend on information that is often complex, opaque, and value laden. For Nick King, core faculty member at the Max Bell School and Associate Professor in the Department of Equity, Ethics and Policy, examining how knowledge is produced, trusted, and applied is central to how we govern responsibly.
鈥淢y research interests center around where knowledge comes from and where we use it in public policy,鈥� King explains. 鈥淔or most of my career I鈥檝e focused on knowledge and information in health, particularly on health inequalities. How do we measure them, how do we find them, and what do we do when we identify health inequalities, from both a policy perspective but also through human values and ethics.鈥�
King鈥檚 research sits at the intersection of public health policy, ethics, and epistemology, exploring how evidence informs decision-making. He is particularly interested in the hidden assumptions behind the data and tools we rely on to define health outcomes and shape policy. 鈥淢ore recently I鈥檝e been looking into 鈥榖lack boxes鈥� in the creation of knowledge,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he most obvious these days is the black box of what we call artificial intelligence, such as algorithms and large language models. I鈥檝e both been using and exploring things like large language models for identifying how knowledge is produced and the limitations.鈥�
These 鈥渂lack boxes,鈥� King notes, aren鈥檛 limited to technology, they exist wherever complex systems or measurements are treated as neutral or objective, when in fact they reflect human values and choices. Understanding those layers, he believes, is essential to making sound and ethical policy decisions.
That same curiosity and critical engagement underpin his approach to teaching. 鈥淎sking students to use some of the tools that are out there to confront policy problems,鈥� he explains. 鈥淭his can mean doing research on their own, trying to actually figure out how to do research for policy questions, and then actually engaging in it themselves.鈥�
Through this process, King encourages students to confront their own biases and ways of knowing. 鈥淭he best way to learn about your own assumptions and biases is to see it in practice and see how they impact the answers you get to questions or to policy problems.鈥�
Through this process, students not only learn how to generate and analyze evidence, they learn to recognize how their own perspectives shape the conclusions they reach. 鈥淭he best way to learn about your own assumptions and biases is to see it in practice and see how they impact the answers you get to questions or to policy problems,鈥� King notes.
His teaching is guided by a principle that reflects his entire philosophy, learning how to be skeptical without becoming cynical. For King, skepticism is a valuable habit of mind, one grounded in awareness of where information originates, who produces it, and what values or biases might shape it. It is, he emphasizes, about cultivating discernment rather than distrust.
But King also warns against taking skepticism too far. 鈥淐ynicism is when you push this too far and then you start to believe nothing is trustworthy, nothing is truth. This is where the ideas of us living in a 鈥榩ost-truth鈥� society might come in.鈥�
Instead, he encourages his students to see knowledge as something that can still be trusted鈥攊f understood critically and used responsibly. 鈥淥ne of the most important things I want students to leave this program with is that we are not in a post-truth society,鈥� King emphasizes. 鈥淚t is possible to be an educated consumer of information and knowledge that is out there, without becoming cynical. The more you understand where knowledge comes from, the better position you will be in to use it to enact public policy and make the world a better place.鈥�
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