Universiteit Utrecht Department of Science Technology and Society Conference: Changing Relations between Science and Society Science, Technology and Society.

Universiteit Utrecht

Department of Science Technology and Society

Conference: Changing Relations between Science and SocietyScience, Technology and Society – Universiteit Utrecht – 1988 – 2008

Utrecht 16 April 2008

Post-normal Science and STS

Dr. Jeroen P. van der [email protected]

Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development and InnovationUtrecht University

Department of STS


Contents• Ch-Ch syndrome – the origin of PNS• 1986 Science at the Court: my earliest

use of STS• Science in the News• Science for Sale• Science in the Post Normal age• Models of science and policy• Post Normal Science in practice

Department of STS


Ch-Ch syndrome 1986“The issue of quality control in science,

technology and decision-making is now appreciated as urgent and threatening. The experiences of Chernobyl and Challenger, both resulting from lapses of quality control, illustrate this problem. We have described the "Ch‑Ch Syndrome": the catastrophic collapse of sophisticated mega-technologies resulting from political pressure, incompetence and cover‑ups (Ravetz et al., 1986).”

Department of STS


PNS and Risk Society

• “The destructive impact of our industrial system on the natural environment is another manifestation of the Ch-Ch syndrome. Here the phenomena are less dramatic but more pervasive. The pathologies of the industrial system are transferred out, so that it degrades its environment while running "normally". This contradiction affects more than particular high technologies; the very place of science in our civilization is called into question.”

Funtowicz & Ravetz 1990

Department of STS


Science at the court [22 april 1986]

When: 4 days before Chernobyl Nuclear DisasterWhere: Military Court ArnhemSuspect: Jeroen van der Sluijs, Chemistry student, 20yrSuspected of: Refusing military service

“mr Judge, if you only had read Willem de Ruiters1985 study The Nuclear inheritance, you would understand that society is on the wrong track and we all should refuse to collaborate.”

STS themes in 1988

• Ethical Responsibility of the scientist

• Reactive: “Counter-expertise”!! (2008: Proactive: “Sustainability science”!!)

• O4 [Onwijs Ontevreden Over Onderwijs] We, chemistry students, want Philosophy of Science!

Student report for Science Shop Leiden:

“Nuclear Energy and Risks of Radiation: Controversies on risk assessment and standard setting of exposure to low dose ionizing radiation”

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Science in the news

This weeks news headlines:• Quarter of professorial chairs is sponsored

(de Volkskrant 12 April 2008)

• ‘Sideline jobs professors public from now on’, minister announces (de Volkskrant 14 April 2008)

• ‘Extraordinary professors are important and simply necessary’, says Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU). (de Volkskrant 14 April 2008)

– Me, as a student 20 years ago: philosophical discussions on contract research with Chemistry & Society lecturer Arie Rip and later Anne Stijkel

– My position then: University = Bastion of Freedom!, ‘Academic freedom first’, say no to contract research: “whose bread one eats, whose word one speaks!”

– Now: 40% of my tenured job is paid from contract research...

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“I have a positive attitude to contract research. Those who address

societal relevant questions can often obtain external funding. Still, there are dangers and

limitations. So, contract research at a university may never form the

major share of research activities.”

Prof. Wim Turkenburg interview in: Wetenschap en Samenleving, 1988 No.1 (p. 43)

(Photo by Marcel Terlouw)

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Situation UU STS 2008

35 FTE• 35% 1st money stream• 8% 2nd money stream (NWO)• 58% 3rd money stream (Contract research)

– the major share.....!!!

(Source: “Normatieve Takentabel 2007-2008”, STS)

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Listen with care! Van der Sluijs has been sponsored by...

Copernicus InstituteUtrecht University

Department of STS


Cover-ups! we now reveal Van der Sluijs’ hidden sponsors...

Copernicus InstituteUtrecht University

What’shiding

beyondthe

CATOlogo

...

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- Fabrication (and politicisation) of uncertainty

The example of the US Data quality act and of the OMB “Peer Review and Information Quality” which”seemed designed to maximize the ability of corporate interests to manufacture and magnify scientific uncertainty”.

Science for sale

Department of STS


Science for sale – Bisphenol ACongress: Science for Sale?Congress Launches Probe Into Firm's Work on

Chemical Used to Make Many Plastic Bottles..a confidential Weinberg Group document ...in which

the firm suggested to DuPont ... several ways it could help "shape the debate" about one of its chemical products. The firm proposed ... "constructing a study to establish" that DuPont's chemical was safe, and arranging the publication of papers "dispelling the alleged nexus" between the company's chemical and its alleged harmful effects on humans.”

ABC News 6 Feb 2008

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Exclusive: 'Science for Sale' Probe Deepens

A scientific consulting firm once crowed of its success in delaying the cancellation of a harmful drug by 10 years, congressional investigators say. Lawmakers have more tough questions for the Weinberg Group, which has been accused of "manufacturing uncertainty“ about research to benefit its corporate clients and their products.

ABCNews, March 11, 2008,

Department of STS


Complex - uncertain - risksTypical characteristics (Funtowicz & Ravetz):• Decisions urgent• Potential error-costs huge • Values in dispute• Deep uncertainties• More research less uncertainty• Knowledge produced through models,

scenarios, assumptions, extrapolations• (hidden) value loadings

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RIVM / De Kwaadsteniet (1999)“RIVM over-exact prognoses based on

virtual reality of computer models”

Newspaper headlines:• Environmental institute lies and deceits• Fuss in parliament after criticism on

environmental numbers • The bankruptcy of environmental

numbers• Society has a right on fair information,

RIVM does not provide it

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Funtowicz and Ravetz, Science for the Post Normal age, Futures, 1993

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Key elements of Post Normal Science

• Appropriate management of uncertainty, quality, and value-ladenness

• Plurality of commitments and perspectives

• Internal extension of peer community• External extension of peer community

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Protecting a strategic fresh-water resource

5 consultants addressed same question:

“which parts of this area are most vulnerable to nitrate pollution and need to be protected?”

(Refsgaard, Van der Sluijs et al, 2006)

How to act upon such uncertainty?• Bayesian approach: 5 priors. Average and update

likelihood of each grid-cell being red with data (but oooops, there is no data and we need decision now)

• IPCC approach: Lock the 5 consultants up in a room and don’t release them before they have consensus

• Nihilist approach: Dump the science and decide on an other basis

• ‘Rita Verdonk’ approach: open a wiki site and let the people say and vote what they feel is the truth and take that as guidance

• Precautionary approach: protect all grid-cells• Precaution light: protect those grid-cells that are red

according to at least one consultant• Academic bureaucrat approach: Weigh by citation index

(or H-factor) of consultant.• Select the consultant that you trust most• Real life approach: Select the consultant that best fits

your policy agenda• Normalized post normal: weigh them by pedigee score• Post normal: explore the relevance of our ignorance:

working deliberatively within imperfections

Department of STS


3 paradigms of uncertain risks'deficit view'• Uncertainty is provisional• Reduce uncertainty, make ever more complex models• Tools: quantification, Monte Carlo, Bayesian belief networks

'evidence evaluation view'• Comparative evaluations of research results• Tools: Scientific consensus building; multi disciplinary expert panels• focus on robust findings

'complex systems view / post-normal view'• Uncertainty is intrinsic to complex systems• Uncertainty can be result of production of knowledge• Acknowledge that not all uncertainties can be quantified• Openly deal with deeper dimensions of uncertainty

(problem framing indeterminacy, ignorance, assumptions, value loadings, institutional dimensions)

• Tools: Knowledge Quality Assessment• Deliberative negotiated management of risk

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Models of Science and Policy

‘Modern’ model: Perfection and perfectibility• Facts determine correct policy• The true entails the good• No limits to progress of control over environment• No limits to material & moral progress• Technocratic view

• Science informs policy by producing objective, valid and reliable knowledge:

“Speaking truth to power”

(Funtowicz, 2006; Funtowicz & Strand, 2007)

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limitations of modern model

• Objective, valid and reliable, but...- is information really objective?- is it valid?- is it reliable?

• Conflicts of interests- what if scientists are themselves stakeholders?


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Modern model assumes that:

• Uncertainty can be eliminated or controlled

• Only one correct system description• system and problem are not complex


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Responses to limitations of Modern Model

• Denial• Accommodations• Rethinking


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Rescuing Modern Model from uncertainty:The Precautionary Model• Imperfection in science:

– “lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation” (Rio Declaration 1992)

• EU: proportionality – not PP but extended cost-benefit analysis

• Normative principle still in terms of quantitative science and modern rationality (CBA)

• What if we can not know what kind of surprises a new technology may lead to


Department of STS


Rescuing the modern model from indeterminacyThe Framing Model• In absence of conclusive facts, science is one of many

inputs in policy, functioning as evidence in the discourse.• Conflicting certainties, multitude of alternative framings

defendable• Rescue: Dialogue, participation, inter-subjective

knowledge, consensus formation, robustness, upstream engagement

• Works if framing problem is one of bias and bounded rationality

• Retains the modern ideal of certain scientific knowledgeBut... it is a matter of necessary choices, not of

unnecessary biases.


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Rescuing the modern model from conflict of interests

Model of science/policy demarcation• Acknowledges expert disagreement and bias, but

diagnoses and prescription differ from framing model• Framing: make values explicit; demarcation:

values = politics, facts = science, keep separated!• Ensure that political accountability is not shifted to

scientist, keep science objective and value free• Call for independent studies, sound science, strict

separation of risk assessment and risk management• But... Complexity, Indeterminacy, fundamental

impossibility of value free science


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Summary of responses to problems of modern model

• Imperfection– Policy modified by precaution

• Misuse– Problems (co-)framed by stakeholders

• Abuse– Protect science from political pressure


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In case of complex problems, all modifications of modern models fail because:

• Truth cannot be known and is thus not a substantial aspect of the issue

• “... good scientific work has a product, which should ... correspond to Nature as closely as possible... But the working judgements on the product are of its quality, and not of its logical truth.”

(Funtowicz and Ravetz 1990, p. 30)

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The alternative model: PNSExtended participation: working deliberatively within imperfections• Science is only one part of relevant evidence• Critical dialogue on strength and relevance of

evidence• Interpretation of evidence and attribution of

policy meaning to knowledge is democratized• Tools for Knowledge Quality Assessment

empower all stakeholders to engage in this deliberative process


Lister 1998

NL Environmental Assessment Agency (RIVM/MNP) Guidance: Systematic reflection on uncertainty & quality in:

PNS in 2008:Tools & checklists for Knowledge Quality Assessment

SCIENCE VOL 316 13 APRIL 2007

“Today, eight years on from the Dutch scandal, no one makes more strenuous efforts than does the Netherlands’ RIVM to accommodate and cope with the uncertainties of environmental data and models, hence to achieve the greatest possible quality in generating environmental foresight.”

(Bruce Beck)

Extended Peer Involvement in practice

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MNP Guidance on Stakeholder Particpation

•Why participation? •What should participation be

about? •Who to involve? •How much participation? •What form?

Sherry Arnstein 1969Ladder of Citizen ParticipationImplemented at MNP 2007

Level ofambitioni

Direction ofcommunication

Co-decide

Co-produce

In

tera

ctie

f

Take advice /

Consult

Listen

Study

Inform

Nie

t in

tera

ctie

f

No participation

*SH = stakeholders

SH

SH MNP

MNP

MNP & SH*

SH

SH

MNP

MNP

SH MNP

SH MNP

1988 Conclusions 2008Reactive: - Counter Expertise

Proactive: - Sustainability Science

Critical Science for the people – against establishment- Serve the people

KQA tools enable critical science by (with) the people (dialogue)- Empower the people

Flowering Science Shops in NL

Everyone does science & science is for sale

Ethical responsibility of the scientist

Valorisation of knowledge

University = Bastion of Freedom!

Focus & MassSocietal Relevance First!

Universiteit Utrecht Department of Science Technology and Society Conference: Changing Relations between Science and Society Science, Technology and Society.

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