Post-normal science diagram
Jerome Ravetz and Silvio Funtowicz, circa 1988, at Sheffield
Post-normal science (PNS) represents a novel approach
for the use of science on issues where "facts [are] uncertain, values in
dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent". PNS was developed in the 1990s by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz.
It can be considered as a reaction to the styles of analysis based on
risk and cost-benefit analysis prevailing at that time, and as an
embodiment of concepts of a new "critical science" developed in previous
works by the same authors.
In a more recent work PNS is described as "the stage where we are
today, where all the comfortable assumptions about science, its
production and its use, are in question".
Context
In 1962, Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions introduced the concept of normal science as part of his theory that scientific knowledge progresses through socially constructed paradigm shifts,
where normal science is what most scientists do all the time and what
all scientists do most of the time. The process of a paradigm shift is
essentially as follows:
- from normal science (the rules are agreed upon or disagreed upon in debates that cannot be concluded; science is puzzle solving, but some contradictions in theory cannot be resolved)
- to revolutionary science (important rules are called into question; contradictions may be resolved; paradigms shift)
- to new normal science (new rules are accepted, science returns to puzzle solving under new rules).
An illustration of the theory in practice is the Copernican revolution, where Copernicus’ idea of a (sun-centered) solar system was largely ignored (not in the rules) when first introduced; then Galileo
was deemed a heretic for supporting the idea (rules called into
question); and finally, after a revolution in cosmology, the solar
system became an obvious and foundational part of scientific knowledge
(new rules).
Another example is the question of whether light is a particle or a wave.
For a long time there was debate on this point. Advocates on both sides
had many valid arguments based on scientific evidence but were lacking a
theory that would resolve the conflict. After a revolution in thinking,
it was realized that both perspectives could be true.
Physicist and policy adviser James J. Kay
described post-normal science as a process that recognizes the
potential for gaps in knowledge and understanding that cannot be
resolved in ways other than revolutionary science. He argued
that (between revolutions) one should not necessarily attempt to
resolve or dismiss contradictory perspectives of the world, whether they
are based on science or not, but instead incorporate multiple
viewpoints into the same problem-solving process. From the ecological
perspective post-normal science can be situated in the context of
'crisis disciplines' – a term coined by the conservation biologist Michael E. Soulé to indicate approaches addressing fears, emerging in the seventies, that the world was on the verge of ecological collapse. In this respect Michael Egan
defines PNS as a 'survival science'. More recently PNS has been defined
as a movement of ‘informed critical resistance, reform and the making
of futures.’
.
Moving from PNS Ziauddin Sardar developed the concept of Postnormal Times (PNT). Sardar was the editor of FUTURES when it published the article ‘Science for the post-normal age’ presently the most cited paper of the journal. A recent review of academic literature conducted on the Web of Science and encompassing the topics of Futures studies, Foresight, Forecasting and Anticipation Practice identifies the same paper as "the all-time publication that received the highest number of citations".
Content
"At
birth Post-normal science was conceived as an inclusive set of robust
insights more than as an exclusive fully structured theory or field of
practice".
Some of the ideas underpinning PNS can already be found in a work
published in 1983 and entitled "Three types of risk assessment: a
methodological analysis" This and subsequent works show that PNS concentrates on few aspects of the complex relation
between science and policy: the communication of uncertainty, the
assessment of quality, and the justification and practice of the
extended peer communities.
Coming to the PNS diagram (figure above) the horizontal axis
represents ‘Systems Uncertainties’ and the vertical one ‘Decision
Stakes’. The three quadrants identify Applied Science, Professional
Consultancy, and Post-Normal Science. Different standards of quality and
styles of analysis are appropriate to different regions in the diagram,
i.e. Post-normal science does not claim relevance and cogency on all of
science's application but only on those defined by the PNS's mantram
with a fourfold challenge: ‘facts uncertain, values in dispute, stakes
high and decisions urgent’. For applied research science’s own peer
quality control system will suffice (or so was assumed at the moment PNS
was formulated in the early nineties), while professional consultancy
was considered appropriate for these settings which cannot be
‘peer-reviewed’, and where the skills and the tacit knowledge of a
practitioner are needed at the forefront, e.g. in a surgery room, or in a
house on fire. Here a surgeon or a fireman takes a difficult technical
decision based on her or his training and appreciation of the situation
(the Greek concept of ‘Metis (mythology)’).
Complexity
There are important linkages between PNS and complexity science, e.g. system ecology (C. S. Holling) and hierarchy theory (Arthur Koestler).
In PNS, complexity is respected through its recognition of a
multiplicity of legitimate perspectives on any issue; and reflexivity is
realised through the extension of accepted ‘facts’ beyond the
supposedly objective productions of traditional research. Also, the new
participants in the process are not treated as passive learners at the
feet of the experts, being coercively convinced through scientific
demonstration. Rather, they will form an ‘extended peer community’,
sharing the work of quality assurance of the scientific inputs to the
process, and arriving at a resolution of issues through debate and
dialogue.
Extended Peer Community
PNS
concept of extended peer community moves from and transcends the
familiar concept of scientific peer community relative to a well-defined
field of scientific research.
The peer community is extended in two respects: first, more than one
discipline is assumed to have a potential bearing on the issue being
debated, thereby providing different lenses to consider the problem.
Second the community is extended to lay actors, taken to be all those
with stakes, or an interest, in the given issue. Perhaps the best
justification of the concept is offered by Paul Feyerabend in Against
Method. For Feyerabend the participation of experts together with non-experts
would allow the citizens to mature, inter alia by realizing that the
experts are themselves lay-people outside their restricted field of
competence. For Giandomenico Majone "In any area of public policy the choice of instruments, far from being
a technical exercise that can be safely delegated to the experts,
reflects as in a microcosm all the political, moral, and cultural
dimensions of policy-making." The same author notes: "Dialectical
confrontation between generalists and experts often succeeds in bringing
out unstated assumptions, conflicting interpretations of the facts, and
the risks posed by the projects". These considerations justifies the
need for an extended peer community, as the arena where the policy
instruments and options can be discussed with - but without deference to
- the experts and the authorities.
The lay members of the community thus constituted may also take
upon themselves active 'research' tasks; this has happened e.g. in the
so-called 'popular epidemiology' ,
when the official authorities have shown reticence to perform
investigations deemed necessary by the communities affected - for
example - by a case of air or water pollution, and more recently ‘citizen science’.
The extended community can usefully investigate the quality of the
scientific assessments provided by the experts, the definition of the
problem, as well as research priorities and research questions.
Thus, the extension of the peer community is not only ethically
fair or politically correct, but also enhances the quality of the
relevant science. An example is provided by Brian Wynne, who discusses
the Cumbrian sheep farmers' interaction with scientist and authorities
in the relation to the Chernobyl radioactive fallout.
Applications
Beside its dominating influence in the literature on 'futures',
PNS is considered to have influenced the ecological ‘conservation
versus preservation debate’, especially via its reading by American
pragmatist Bryan G. Norton. According to Jozef Keulartz the PNS concept of "extended peer community" influenced how Norton's
developed his 'convergence hypothesis'. The hypothesis posits that
ecologists of different orientation will converge once they start
thinking 'as a mountain', or as a planet. For Norton this will be
achieved via deliberative democracy, which will pragmatically overcome
the black and white divide between conservationists and
preservationists.
Other authors attribute to PNS the role of having stimulated the take up of
transdisciplinary methodological frameworks, reliant on the social
constructivist perspective embedded in PNS.
Today Post-normal science is intended as applicable to most
instances where the use of evidence is contested due to different norms
and values.
As summarized in a recent work "the ideas and concepts of post
normal science bring about the emergence of new problem solving
strategies in which the role of science is appreciated in its full
context of the complexity and the uncertainty of natural systems and the
relevance of human commitments and values.
For Peter Gluckman (2014), chief science advisor to the Prime
Minister of New Zealand, post normal science approaches are today
appropriate for a host of problems including "eradication of exogenous
pests […], offshore oil prospecting, legalization of recreational
psychotropic drugs, water quality, family violence, obesity, teenage
morbidity and suicide, the ageing population, the prioritization of
early-childhood education, reduction of agricultural greenhouse gases,
and balancing economic growth and environmental sustainability".
For Carrozza
PNS can be "framed in terms of a call for the ‘democratization of
expertise’", and as a "reaction against long-term trends of
‘scientization’ of politics—the tendency towards assigning to experts a
critical role in policymaking while marginalizing laypeople". For Mike
Hulme (2007), writing on The Guardian
Climate change seems falls into the category of issues which are best
dealt with in the context of PNS and notes that "Disputes in post-normal
science focus as often on the process of science - who gets funded, who
evaluates quality, who has the ear of policy - as on the facts of
science". Recent reviews of the history and evolution of PNS, its definitions, conceptualizations,
and uses can be found in Turnpenny et al., 2010, and in The Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics (Nature and Society). There has been recently an increased reference to post-normal science, e.g. in Nature (journal).
Criticism
A criticism of post-normal science is offered by Weingart (1997)
for whom Post-normal science does not introduce a new epistemology but
retraces earlier debates linked to the so-called "finalization thesis".
Special issues
The journal FUTURES devoted several specials issues to PNS.
- The first was in 1999 and included as editorial two pieces: from Jerome Ravetz and Silvio Funtowicz, Post-Normal Science—an insight now maturing, and from Jerome Ravetz: What is Post-Normal Science.
- The second special issue, edited by Merryl Wyn Davies, was entitled "Post normal times" in 2011. This was a selection of papers from the symposium "Post Normal Science – perspectives & prospectives 26-27th June 2009, Oxford." A summary of the abstracts can be found on the NUSAP net.
- The third special issue on PNS was in 2017. This special issue contains a selection of papers discussed at the University of Bergen's Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities between 2014 and 2016. The issue includes also two extended commentaries on the present crisis in science and the post-fact/post-truth discourse, one from Europe (Saltelli and Funtowicz) and one from Japan (Tsukahara). All articles in this special issue are in open access.
Another special issue on Post Normal Science was published on the journal Science, Technology & Human Values in May 2011.
More titles and links relative to PNS special issues are available at the NUSAP net.
Recent production
A group of scholars of PNS orientation has published in 2016 a volume on the quality control crisis of science. The volume discusses inter alia what this community perceive as the root causes of the present crisis.
Quantitative approaches
Among the quantitative styles of analysis which make reference to post-normal science one can mention NUSAP for numerical information, sensitivity auditing for indicators and mathematical modelling and MUSIASEM in the field of social metabolism.
Mathematical modeling
In
relation to mathematical modelling PNS suggests a participatory
approach, whereby ‘models to predict and control the future’ are
replaced by ‘models to map our ignorance about the future’, in the
process exploring and revealing the metaphors embedded in the model. PNS is also known for the its definition of GIGO: in modelling GIGO
occurs when the uncertainties in the inputs must be suppressed, lest the
outputs become completely indeterminate.
