"Why social scientists should engage with natural scientists" by Philip Lowe OBE

Philip Lowe

Why social scientists should engage with natural scientists

ACES November 2010

Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (1798 – 1857)

Social Physics – later ‘Sociology’

Queen of the Sciences- organised the lower sciences

• Social engineers of the Victorian era

Social scientists steering technical change in the mid/late 19th century

20th century – disciplinary specialization/ interdisciplinary reaction

• The need for articulation of the disciplines– Interdisciplinarity: periodic

engagement/disengagement of the disciplines

• Different prompts for interdisciplinary collaboration:– Educational; Academic; External/Societal – Cycle of practical application and academic

abstraction

“periods of marching and periods of weaving. For a time, the different academic professions march forward separately but in parallel, each in its own special way; then, for a time, they join hands and work together on the general problems arising in the areas where their techniques overlap”.

The changing relationship of social sciences towards technical R&D:

1950s-1970s – Era of technological optimism

1970s-1990s – Era of technological criticism/detachment

2000s – Upfront engagement

(Dis)engaging the Applied Social Sciences

1950s-1970s – Era of technological optimism Involvement in technological developments, focussed on barriers to diffusion of innovations.

(Dis)engaging the Applied Social Sciences

The changing relationship of social sciences towards technical R&D:

1970s-1990s – Era of technological criticism/ detachment

Social scientists reject ‘end of pipe’ role and address growing concerns over social and environmental impacts of new technologies.

(Dis)engaging the Applied Social Sciences

The changing relationship of social sciences towards technical R&D:

2000s – Upfront re-engagement?

Interdisciplinary research bringing critical social analysis into steering the design of socio-technical change for sustainable development

(Dis)engaging the Applied Social Sciences

The changing relationship of social sciences towards technical R&D:

Climate Change: New imperative for interdisciplinarity

Engaging the sciences

• Technological solutions on their own will not suffice

• A need for new technologies to go with grain of social change and social innovation which creatively exploits technological opportunities

• Innovation as combined socio-technical process

Engaging the sciences

If social scientists don’t construct the social, natural scientists will do it for them Example of ecology

Ecologists’ Construing of People

ScientificObject

Research Context

Function of Discipline

People construed as:

Classical Ecology 1900

Natural organisms

Natural conditions

Saving and protecting wild nature

Ecological audience

Applied Ecology1960

Natural organisms

Natural/human systems

Ecological management

Ecological agents

Sustainability Science2000

Natural/human organisms

Natural/human systems

Environmental governance

Ecological subjects/objects

1st 2nd 3rd

Work closely with stakeholders and end-users

51% 23% 11%

Work closely with social scientists in research projects

27% 31% 18%

Extend ecological concepts and methods to embrace the human/social dimensions

16% 15% 25%

Take into account the results of social science research

2% 13% 27%

Work closely with social or political movements

2% 13% 14%

Themselves adopt social science methods or concepts

2% 6% 5%

How can ecologists best take into account the social/human dimensions of their work?

The Relu (Rural Economy and Land Use) programme

Avoid partial framings of questions and complex problems

Introduce new framings of research problems

Contextualise technological opportunities and environmental constraints

Provide holistic solutions Improve accountability by

opening up framing of problems and resource allocation decisions

New Ways of Doing Science Claims for interdisciplinary research are that it can help:

The Relu programme

Roles To…

Problem framing

Reflect on the appropriate definition of problems

Public representation

Help illuminate or facilitate expression and engagement of public, consumer and stakeholder preferences, values and motivations

Systems analysis

Understand the organisation and governance of complex systems

What use social sciences in interdisciplinary projects:

Ecologists and social scientists in Relu

Ecologists collaborating with social scientists by activity (%)

Joint scientific publication

Joint dissemination

Joint scrutiny of concepts

Joint field work

Joint data analysis

Joint modelling

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90Dis

sem

inat

ion

Con

cept

ual

Met

hodo

logi

cal

Joint development of decision support tools

Combining techniques and methods

Combining social & natural science data sets

Collective framing of research

Joint decision making on research and method design

Joint prep of reports

Ecologists in Relu: How to choose a social science partner

Ecological modeller

Landscape ecologist

Economists have much in common with ecologists – they are quantitative, and develop predictive models

Working with qualitative social scientists is much more exciting and

challenging

?

Ecologists in Relu: How to choose a social science partner

Community ecologist

Applied ecologist

Ecology’s hypothetic-deductive approach is quite alien to many social scientists

As a field scientist, I believe that useful science can be done without recourse solely to hypothesis-testing

?

Ecologists in Relu: How to choose a social science partner

Spatial ecologist

Conservation ecologist

Links are easiest to the more reductionist social scientiststhan the more holistic ones

Ecologists and social scientistsboth have to understand systems that cannot be confined to simple equations or hypotheses, and may not be amenable to experiment

?

Unity of the social and environmental sciences in intervention mode

Mode of science

Observational

Experimentation

Intervention

Site of discovery

Field

Laboratory

Field

Knowledge generated

Natural observation, leading to induction

Results of controlled experiment, leading to deduction

Observation and experiment through intervention, leading to innovation

Epistemological assumption

All seeing , but detached and neutral observer

All powerful experimenter, ensuring completely controlled and replicable conditions

Researchers learn through field interventions

Examples

Classical environmental and social sciences

Physical and biological sciences

Action research, engineering, medicine, applied social and environmental sciences

Science in an unstable environment