tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8216971263350849959.post6483578289087287987..comments2023-08-07T16:41:49.660+02:00Comments on Die Klimazwiebel: PNS and Chinese Scienceeduardohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725131974182980651noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8216971263350849959.post-76408076606818596222015-04-09T08:33:10.597+02:002015-04-09T08:33:10.597+02:00@grundmann
interessante Fragen, aber ich persönl...@grundmann <br /><br />interessante Fragen, aber ich persönlich sehe nun gar keine Sonderstellung der Klimaforschung. Warum auch? <br /><br />Mal ein Beispiel aus der aktuellen Presse: <br /><br />http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/US-Forscher-wollen-Moratorium-bei-Gen-Manipulationen-an-Menschen-2596105.html<br /><br />Forscher haben eben entwickelt, wie man Gene beim Menschen gezielt manipulieren kann. Nun fordern einige ein Moratorium dafür. <br /><br />Daher meine Fragen: ist das ein Fall von PNS? <br /><br />Ist die Forscher, die das Moratorium fordern, Honest Broker? Ist doch sehr alarmistisch und vorallem politisch. Vielleicht retten sie uns damit alle, oder verhindern eine Krebstherapie oder das ewige Leben, oder es hat gar keinen Effekt. Wer weiß. <br /><br />Aus anderen Wissenschaftsrichtungen kann man ähnliches berichten. <br /><br />Ich finde den Versuch der Klimaforschung eine Alleinstellung zu geben hier zwar verständlich (heißt ja Klimazwiebel und nicht Wissenschaftszwiebel), aber letztlich ist es falsch (das muss man so hart sagen.) und z.T. wird damit die Klimaforschung absichtlich schlecht geredet.<br /><br />GHBAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8216971263350849959.post-67146027448148275772015-04-06T16:14:28.749+02:002015-04-06T16:14:28.749+02:00Thank you Jerry for digging up this quote. In fact...Thank you Jerry for digging up this quote. In fact it nicely summarizes the standard view of many, scientists and lay people about the nature of science and how it relates to decision making and publics.<br /><br />I have two questions:<br /><br />- Would you say that climate science deviates from this account, but that other forms of science are still operating within such a 'normal' framework?<br /><br />- Do you think that science is central to decisions about practical action in everyday life?@ReinerGrundmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12759452975366986236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8216971263350849959.post-1880409215912458142015-04-06T03:37:50.945+02:002015-04-06T03:37:50.945+02:00I got this e-mail from Jerry Ravetz, who allowed m...I got this e-mail from Jerry Ravetz, who allowed me to publish it here:<br /><br />Recently I dug out this item. It expresses ‘normality’ very well. If we recall that the typical scientist spends at least a dozen very formative years in a rigorous, restrictive training described well by Thomas Kuhn, and where (Kuhn does not mention this explicitly) he learns by example that for every scientific problem there is one and only one correct solution, precise to several significant digits. Layton was Professo of Science Education at Leeds, and (as you see from the extract below) a very penetrating observer of the science scene.<br /><br />- Science is coherent, objective, unproblematic and well-bounded.<br />- Science is central to decisions about practical action in everyday life.<br />- Science is unencumbered by social and institutional commitments.<br />- Uptake of science is determined by intellectual ability.<br />- Ignorance on the part of the public has to be remedied.<br />- Unscientific behavior results from the failure to apply scientific knowledge.<br />- Scientific thought is the yardstick with which to measure the validity of everyday thinking.<br /><br />D Layton et al, 1993. ‘Inarticulate Science? Perspectives on the Public Understanding of Science and Some Implications for Science Education’, Studies in Science Education.<br /><br />(I (HvS) did not know the termn "unencumbered" - LEO tells me it could be translated by "unbelasted".)Hans von Storchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08778028673130006646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8216971263350849959.post-12907670863424488352015-04-02T10:59:04.580+02:002015-04-02T10:59:04.580+02:00Thanks, Jerry, for providing context for the conce...Thanks, Jerry, for providing context for the concept of PNS. I always appreciated the openess of PNS. In my understanding, postnormal situations are not just a temporary suspension from normalcy; instead, they point to the limits of normal science concerning the organization and solution of complicated geo-socio-techno situations. Many people have to deal with postnormal situations on a daily basis; they develop strategies on basis of their own terms and possibilities (= lore) - and they do so often times successfully.<br /><br />This means it is no longer enough to only disqualify "lore" as scientifically incorrect, as alarmist, as "only" religiously motivated or whatever derogatory terms are applied to it; instead, the task is to understand how and when configurations of people and things turn out to be "resilient", and how they deal with postnormal situations (and for many societies, postnormal is normal, see for example people actually living in mega-cities, in slums, in war zones etc). Sometimes, there is no time nor hope to wait for science to find the appropriate solutions and to lead the process; in these cases, science is better understood as an additional tool for improving local strategies. This necessitates communication. It is not truth versus lore, it is about understanding better complex situations.<br /><br />The climate debate unfortunately helps to keep the illusion alive that someday science will replace all other forms of knowledge and "normalize" climate and society. This indeed is truely global lore in the negative sense that Dennis applies to it.<br /><br />I do not know much about China. But of course, postnormal situations appear there as much as in every other society or, due to the acceleration of each and everything, even more than elsewhere. Postnormal science is not a luxury only the wealthy or democratic societies can afford; it is better understood as a tool and a methodology for life support. Even dictatorships cannot ignore reality forever; and yes, the organization of geo-socio-techno-situations necessitates intact communal decision structures. PNS is political, as is science.Werner Krausshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15094636819952421339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8216971263350849959.post-82230394986078259052015-04-01T16:44:36.447+02:002015-04-01T16:44:36.447+02:002nd (and last) part of Jerry Ravetz
Perhaps we we...2nd (and last) part of Jerry Ravetz<br /><br />Perhaps we were negligent in failing to draw attention to the complexities and contradictions of political action under the banner of PNS. I should say that I had been well aware of them when I wrote Scientific Knowledge…. In my Conclusion I referred to Ibsen’s play The Enemy of the People (about the prototype science whistleblower), and how its original plot caused embarrassment for progressives. I am sure that large-scale tragedies occurred in the development of peoples’ science during the Cultural Revolution in China. A story still being played out concerns the earthquake that devastated Tangshan. Then warnings were made, based on the traditional popular earthquake prediction lore. But the politics of China were just then complex and unstable, and so the city itself had no warning of the impending catastrophe. (See Wikipedia for a suggestive brief history). The subsequent history is quite murky, but a very recent item brings it all to light again. This is a scientific study that relies on automatic surveys of wild animals, and it found that some days before an earthquake, they disappear! So in this instance the ‘extended peer community’ may well have been right, and the facts about future earthquakes have been just too uncertain to be ascertained by mainstream professional consultancy. You may know that earthquake prediction is a highly charged area of conflict between official scientists and amateurs. The court case, messy as usually, over the scientists at Aquila in Italy, is a good case in point. And it seems that the second earthquake in Christchurch alerted Sir Peter Gluckman to PNS; see the picture in his Nature article.<br /> <br /><br /> Finally, I would respectfully disagree with Dennis over the question of expertise. Some years ago Steve Rayner did a study of climate forecasts; he and some others had developed a system of quarterly forecasts, and were disappointed to learn that none of the anticipated users were interested. On further study, they found that each class of users had their own risk-benefit configuration, none of which involved predictions of that sort. More recently, Roger Pielke Jr. has provided an analysis with four quite distinct sort of science advice, depending on a match between the user’s needs and the specification of the information. Although neither of these examples touches directly on PNS, they are a reminder of the complexity of science, and science advice, in the policy context.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> I hope that this is useful. With relation to prospects in China, I would only say that any cultural product is liable to be politicised, perhaps violently so. One can think of music, poetry, art, religion, language (examples come to mind as write each of these), and so why not science? We can understand PNS as a very early attempt at bringing these issues to light, long before there was a political milieu in which they became recognised as salient.Hans von Storchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08778028673130006646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8216971263350849959.post-86878433704552879672015-04-01T16:43:39.162+02:002015-04-01T16:43:39.162+02:00Jerry Ravetz writes:
What is – or has been – PNS?...Jerry Ravetz writes:<br /><br />What is – or has been – PNS?<br /><br /><br /> I’m grateful to Hans and Dennis for setting up this question so well. As Dennis shows, ‘PNS’ is now a label used for a great variety of perspectives and proposals on the complex system of science in the policy context. His irritation is quite understandable; how can one seriously analyse a term that continuously slides from one set of meanings to another? I confess that I do not share his annoyance; for I had known all along, that if PNS were to survive in use, it would inevitably mean different things to different people. What it originally meant to Silvio and myself, what sorts of problems it was intended to solve, is nearly irrelevant to those who use it now.<br /> <br /><br /> By contrast, Hans has focussed on that original meaning, which was about knowledge and methodology, with the politics apparently tacked on as an extra. That is, if I were standing on one leg I would say that PNS consists of just two things: the fourfold mantram and the quadrant-rainbow three-zone diagram. Everything else is deduction, including ‘Extended Peer Community’. There was a pragmatic reason for this severely restricted focus. This is that scientism was, back in the 1980’s, just about totally hegemonic. Only a handful of angry sociologists dared to question its identification with the True and the Good. To be sure, some scientists took the blame for the Bomb, but society in general was the cause of our environmental ills. Even to claim that sometimes facts are uncertain, was itself a radical act, which attracted sharp criticism. So we focused on epistemology and methodology, and let the political implications look after themselves.<br /><br /> <br /> We anticipated that, if the idea survived, there would arise divergent meanings. Some have found ‘extended peer community’ rather threatening, and so have used ‘extended peer review’ instead. The most prominent recent proponent of PNS, Sir Peter Gluckman in New Zealand, tells about drastic uncertainties and strong value disputes alerted him to PNS, but as Chief Science Advisor he seems to have no need for an extended peer community. On the left, as it were, are those who are irritated by the failure of PNS to draw the logical conclusion that the whole capitalist-technocratic social order is responsible for the ills addressed by PNS. And in its radical critique, PNS may well be outflanked by radical Greens on the one hand, and by a militant practice of sections of DIY science on the other. We shall see.<br /><br />2nd part to follow in next comment<br /> <br /> Hans von Storchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08778028673130006646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8216971263350849959.post-36247026145720576322015-03-30T14:39:16.723+02:002015-03-30T14:39:16.723+02:00@ Hans
Your comment raised an issue that I think a...@ Hans<br />Your comment raised an issue that I think also needs some clarification. This concerns the ‘Concepts of regional climate servicing’ and the role of PNS. First, I would like to address PNS. Post Normal Science, as the name implies, deals with the issue of science. Basically, as far as I understand, it calls for the involvement of stakeholders in the evaluation of science, and maybe the uses of science. Climate service is about presenting the results of science to stakeholders. It is an information service and I am not sure where the ‘dialogue’ enters. Someone from a climate service center presents the best scientific information concerning climate change to a group of stakeholders with the intention of informing them as to what might come, so they can devise an adaptation strategy. The person from the climate service center, while likely an expert on things climate, is not an expert on the thing which concerns the audience, i.e. agriculture, transportation, etc. A dialogue involves an interchange of thought. My question would concern the nature of this dialogue between climate services and the client. To me, climate services are little more (in form) than an evening weather forecast. Climate services tell me what I could possible expect in the future – and to date, as far as I know, that is where the ‘service’ stops, or should stop. From the weather forecast I plan my next few days; from the climate services information, I plan the next few years. As I said above, PNS, as the name implies was once about characteristics of a scientific issue. In its latter configuration it seems to focus on ‘the extended peer review’ whereby the quality of science is questioned, pitting tradition, religion, folklore, lay observations, etc, against science, leading to the political determinism of science. I do not believe climate services opens the floor to the discussion of the validity of the science, it is about giving advice as to what the future climate might look like, and if this is debatable with a lay audience then we are obviously not ready to give this advice. To sum up PNS and Climate Services are apples and oranges. As for climate services, just what is the nature of the dialogue that is mandatory for success? As for PNS, the same question. Explicit examples would go a long way to forming an understanding.<br />In reference to your request for clarity of the statement made in the posting, intellectuals in China were at one time perceived of as against the public good and were controlled (or persecuted accordingly) by forces external to science. PNS in its most recent form also sees science as opposed to the interests of the masses and in need of control by forces external to science. Both refer to the political determinism of science.Dennis Brayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05002342529932352744noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8216971263350849959.post-91240186458830239722015-03-28T04:29:56.997+01:002015-03-28T04:29:56.997+01:00Thanks, Dennis, for this discussion of PNS. It was...Thanks, Dennis, for this discussion of PNS. It wass actually me, who asked - because I am giving a series of seminars "<a href="https://www.academia.edu/11373305/Lecture_Advanced_conceptual_issues_in_climate_and_coastal_science_" rel="nofollow">Advanced conceptual issues in climate and coastal science</a>"; one of the seminars is on "Concepts of regional climate servicing", and I was planning to present a standard talk of mine, within which PNS plays an important role. The I noticed that the basic analysis of competition of knowledgge claims for attaining certain political goals may be invalid in a political system like China's. That was the background of my question.<br /><br />Now, after Dennis explained that it has become quite unclear what PNS stands for, I should emphasize that for me it is the <i>issue</i> of a situation "inherent uncertainty, values in dispute, high stakes and urgency of decisions", not a method. If building extended peer communities is a good approach in this sítuation, I do not know, but that bulding a dialogue with stakeholders when engaging in regional climate service is mandatory for success - in my view.<br /><br />When we see in the "West" the built-up of antagonistic positions, which claim scientific legitimacy, as support for different worldviews, we observe an overselling of scientific assertions, premature conclusions, claims of "sciene is settled" - then this makes sense in an open society where different positions fight for public recognition and, evetually, "power and control". But in China, the situation seems different, with a dominant partyline and major conflicts only behind closed doors, so that positions with claimed scientific legitimacy may have much less significance for the public and a variety of stakeholders than in the "West".<br /><br />Dennis, there was one sentence in your paper, namely: "<i>Intellectuals were assumed to be inherently counter-revolutionary, and it was asserted that their characteristic attitudes and practices were necessarily opposed to the interests of the masses – just as PNS suggests is the case currently in the West.</i>" - I do not understand what you referring to.Hans von Storchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08778028673130006646noreply@blogger.com