Post-Normal Science

Caption: Post-Normal Science can be located in relation to the more traditional complementary strategies, by means of a diagram . (by J. Ravetz)


These few days I am doing some reading and research on the concept of “Post-normal science” to help me diagnose the process of environmental policy making. It might be a bit sophisticated or boring for those who are not interested in the environmental stuff, but I still found it is an interesting concept to share as it can trigger us to rethink about the role and the nature of science.

Post-Normal Science is a concept to describe the methodology of scientific “facts” inquiry in contemporary conditions, especially in the environmental science and policy arena. The so-called objective “truth” or hard “scientific facts” from science research itself is no longer adequate to deal with the uncertainty, decision stakes and complexity of environmental problems. Most of environmental policy are value-driven that soft subjective human value are “hard” in various ways, for which the scientific inputs are irremediably “soft” instead. It is a new form of scientific “facts” construction and interpretation with the involvement and participation of different stakeholder & local knowledge to construct new “facts” as a basis for policy making. To put it simplier, post-normal science is:

Scientific facts+ extended facts (such as local knowledge) + human value = new perception of "scientific facts" as policy basis

After reading enormous amount of related readings, there are only two words in my mind about what happens with science in the environmental arena, i.e. “politicizing science”.
By the way, science researches are always goal-driven and value-laden. What we need to do, as a general citizen or reader or whatever, is to be more sensible with those scientific reports or articles, and think about what are the drives behind such scientific publishing, maybe we can find more interesting stories after.

Further Information: The Post-normal Time