Post-Normality

It is possible to fill 200 pages analyzing and reflecting communication on climate change, as Arjan Wardekker showed in his Master’s thesis. This will not be done here. Instead, I will shortly consider a new method of approaching complex problems like global climate change, genetically modified organisms, or disease outbreak.

An initiative for applying new methods will probably originate in the scientific community. Politicians are too busy trying to get votes, governments are too busy solving the ongoing mess, business are busy by definition, and the public is just not sufficiently informed. Luckily, scientists may find some excellent partners in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). (A commendable initiative of development, humanitarian and nature conservation NGO’s in the Netherlands is the climate program Hier!, “whose fundamental idea it is to stress the immediate necessity to implement adaptation projects and initiatives to climate change”[1].)

I would like to introduce the notion of post-normal science here, a methodology conceived by Funtowicz and Ravetz (Saloranta 2001). Post-normal science acknowledges that science is a social process, and therefore value-laden, and science deals with uncertainty rather than certainty. I have explained above that uncertainty lies in the nature of science, so I will only touch upon the social aspect of science here.

Additional aspects to science

Science and politics exert reciprocal influence on each other; policymakers demand facts and numbers, where science can only supply hypotheses. Scientists may even be forced to accommodate their findings so that they suit the political agenda[2].

Science on the other hand requires funding, so the research questions formulated by scientists are likely to be influenced by the demands of policymakers (Demeritt 2001). Furthermore, social relations between scientists, but also between science and politics, play a more important role than ever. As an example of the former: regarding the climate issue, the so-called James Annen wager was a point of discussion in the media as well as the scientific community (Bailey, 2005).

A new methodology

Post-normal science is applicable “whenever high stakes, risks and/or high uncertainty are involved in a policy-relevant issue” (Saloranta 2001). It uses an extended peer community to take part in scientific problem-solving processes, involves communication of technical as well as methodological, epistemological and ethical uncertainty, and is issue-driven rather than based on existing knowledge and methods.

Transcending boundaries

Post-normal science shows noticeable overlap with transdisciplinary research. Both recognize the uncertainty and complexity of modern day problems, and propose methods that transcend traditional boundaries between science, governments, industry, and social organizations. The fading of these boundaries is also recognized by Gibbons (2000) in his Mode-2 society.

Three central concepts in transdisciplinary research (TD) are 1) participation, 2) knowledge integration, and 3) process facilitation. The stakeholders that engage in the dialogue should be willing and able to participate, but should also be capable of letting go of their thought frames. Local knowledge should be combined with scientific and/or technical knowledge; implicit knowledge is made explicit in transdisciplinary research. Thirdly, TD involves a mutual learning process, which needs to be facilitated.

TD researchers should have adequate procedures and adequate support, and transparency is highly desirable. Most important, the management and facilitation of such processes should be competent and unbiased.

The urge to reduce complexity is a barrier on the way to TD. Another obstacle is the autonomy of disciplines, and the accompanying ‘language barrier’. Physicists talk a different language than social scientists, and biologists have a different jargon than psychologists. Ignoring the human longing for certainty, results of TD are complex and unpredictable. Lastly, the current dominant way of thinking and acting inside boxes is not useful in TD research.

[2] http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11074-us-climate-scientists-pressured-on-climate-change.html

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