Jerome Ravetz, of Oxford University in the UK.
First I must apologise for the long delay in my making a contribution to WUWT. I confess that I was overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of the comments on my first posting; and then I was discouraged by the hostile response to my second posting. By then I was in serious arrears with other work, and so I had to give WUWT a rest. A lot has happened since then, and I am very pleased and encouraged that a spirit of dialogue has taken hold.
Now, many thanks to Willis for reminding me of the challenge to give an example of uncertain facts and high stakes. Let me try. In early 2001 there was evidence of an incipient epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in England. It was not at all certain, how infectious it would be, or what sorts of containment measures would suffice. There were conflicting values, although these were not made clear to the public at the time. These reflected the interests of the different stakeholders, including beef exporters, other farmers, non-farm users of the countryside, and politicians.
For each of them the stakes were high. The best-known stake at risk was the status of British beef exports, as certified FMD-free; this was worth some hundreds of millions of pounds in the increased price for such beef on the world market. But there were other stakes at risk, including the pedigree herds of cattle and sheep built up by farmers, and (largest of all, as it was later realised) the possible harm to all the non-farm activities in the countryside. And what was eventually realised to be the overriding stake was the political fortunes of Tony Blair, with an impending General Election which he didn’t want to have in the midst of an epidemic.
Coming back to ‘the facts’, these were to be determined by experts; but there were two opposed groups of experts. One was the government scientists, who generally had a conservative approach to the risks and to the science. The other was a group of academics, who had developed an expertise in epidemiological modelling. They made ‘pessimistic’ assumptions about the infectivity of the disease, and so their recommendations were on the side of a very aggressive approach. This suited Tony Blair’s political agenda, and so there was a severe quarantine and very extensive slaughtering. However one might criticise the government’s actions, the decision was indeed urgent, and there was a situation of high stakes, disputed values and uncertain facts.
I believe that epidemics of any sort provide examples of PNS. The uncertainty of the facts does not prevent the stakes from being high; there are always historical precedents to go on. Perhaps it would help if we distinguished between the ‘facts’ about causes, and the ‘stakes’ about effects. Only if both causes and effects are so poorly known as to be speculative, does an apparently PNS situation collapse. Even then it is not ‘normal’ science but something else.
There is another lesson for PNS in the ‘foot and mouth’ episode. It was presented to the public as ‘normal science’: “here’s an epidemic, let’s apply the science and stop it”. The uncertainties and value-conflicts were suppressed. More to the point, the ‘extended peer community’ was nonexistent. Divisions among the scientists were kept under wraps. Damage to the rural communities was revealed piecemeal, and then as incidental to the noble effort of quarantine. Only the investigative journal Private Eye published the gory details of the exterminations.
Again, after it was all over, Private Eye published an analysis. However rough and violent debates might be on the blogosphere (as we have seen!) still that is much better than the sort of blanket of silence that has been thrown over scientific scandals in the past.
Having cleared that point to my own satisfaction, let me now engage further with the debate. One reason for my long silence is that (amidst other obligations) I have been reflecting on what all this means for my doctrines of Post-Normal Science. I believe that I already said that this was developed rather in isolation, and did not enjoy the criticism that can come from students or colleagues. So inevitably, some issues were not raised and addressed. I am now grappling with them. Here they are.
Possible corruptions of PNS. These are inevitable. After all, what prophetic message ever escaped being converted into a battleground between priests and demagogues? But I should be more clear about which corruptions are most likely to emerge in PNS, and then to analyse and warn against them. It will painful, since I will be criticising colleagues who have been well-intentioned and loyal.
Quality. On this I find myself reduced to arm-waving, that ‘we all know what Quality is’. But I can say that I am well aware that Quality is not a simple attribute, but is complex, influenced by history and context, recursive (who guards the guardians?), fundamentally a matter of morality (if the people at the top are crooked, the whole edifice of quality-assurance collapses), and of course fallible. This may seem a very insecure foundation for the sort of knowledge that we need, but it’s the best we have. And if one looks for better guarantees of truth even in Pure Science, one will be disappointed.
I should report on a problem that took some decades to solve, relating to quality-assurance. In my old book, I made the point that quality in science depends on the ethical commitments of its leaders, for there is no effective external system for assessing quality. (I spoke from my experience as a researcher in pure mathematics – perhaps a half-dozen people would be competent to assess my work). A student pointed out that this seems to contradict my calls for greater participation in science (I then called it ‘critical science’). I thought I had covered my tracks on that one, observing that in the antagonistic debating context of that sort of science, noone would be allowed to get away with shoddy work. I even gave the example of Dr. Stockman of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People (incidentally exposing how Political Correctness led Arthur Miller to make a crucial modification of the text). But the student observed that I had assumed that the antagonistic debate would itself be of high quality! Eventually I got to some sort of resolution of the problem, admitting that the quality in PNS might indeed be very low, but giving a principle for testing its procedures. This would be ‘negotiating in good faith’, which I remembered from New Deal labor legislation, and which is now a standard criterion for negotiation. This certainly doesn’t ensure quality in PNS, but it provides a criterion. And, incidentally, it could be used to characterise the sorts of discussions that are now emerging on WUWT.
There is another unsolved problem, Truth. I realise that I have a case of what I might call ‘Dawkins-itis’ in relation to Truth. Just as Prof. Dawkins, however learned and sophisticated on all other issues, comes out in spots at the mere mention of the word ‘God’, I have a similar reaction about ‘Truth’. I must work on this. It might relate to my revulsion at the dogmatic and anti-critical teaching of science that I experienced as a student, where anyone with original ideas or questions was scorned and humiliated. I happily use the terms for other Absolutes, like ‘beauty’, ‘justice’ and ‘holy’; so clearly there is something wrong in my head. Watch this space, if you are interested.
Finally, for this phase of the dialogue, I would like to defend myself against a charge that has been made by various critics. This is, that I personally and intentionally laid the foundations for the corrupted science of the CRU, by providing the justification for Steve Schneider’s perversion of scientific integrity. First, there is no record of the guilty scientists ever mentioning, or even being aware, of PNS during the crucial earlier years. Also, shoddy and corrupted science in other fields did not wait for me to come along to justify it. My influence is traced back to a single footnote by Steven Schneider, citing an essay by me in a large, expensive book, Sustainable Development of the Biosphere (ed. W.C. Clarke and R.E. Munn), (Cambridge, University Press, 1986). PNS first came into the climate picture with the quite recent essay by Mike Hulme in 2007. That was a stage in his own evolution from modeller to critic, and came long after the worst excesses at CRU had been committed. I should say that I do not dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand, since some of them are correct! But this one really does seem far-fetched.
Thanks for your patience and good will. I look forward to further exchanges.
First I must apologise for the long delay in my making a contribution to WUWT. I confess that I was overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of the comments on my first posting; and then I was discouraged by the hostile response to my second posting. By then I was in serious arrears with other work, and so I had to give WUWT a rest. A lot has happened since then, and I am very pleased and encouraged that a spirit of dialogue has taken hold.
Now, many thanks to Willis for reminding me of the challenge to give an example of uncertain facts and high stakes. Let me try. In early 2001 there was evidence of an incipient epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in England. It was not at all certain, how infectious it would be, or what sorts of containment measures would suffice. There were conflicting values, although these were not made clear to the public at the time. These reflected the interests of the different stakeholders, including beef exporters, other farmers, non-farm users of the countryside, and politicians. For each of them the stakes were high. The best-known stake at risk was the status of British beef exports, as certified FMD-free; this was worth some hundreds of millions of pounds in the increased price for such beef on the world market. But there were other stakes at risk, including the pedigree herds of cattle and sheep built up by farmers, and (largest of all, as it was later realised) the possible harm to all the non-farm activities in the countryside. And what was eventually realised to be the overriding stake was the political fortunes of Tony Blair, with an impending General Election which he didn’t want to have in the midst of an epidemic. Coming back to ‘the facts’, these were to be determined by experts; but there were two opposed groups of experts. One was the government scientists, who generally had a conservative approach to the risks and to the science. The other was a group of academics, who had developed an expertise in epidemiological modelling. They made ‘pessimistic’ assumptions about the infectivity of the disease, and so their recommendations were on the side of a very aggressive approach. This suited Tony Blair’s political agenda, and so there was a severe quarantine and very extensive slaughtering. However one might criticise the government’s actions, the decision was indeed urgent, and there was a situation of high stakes, disputed values and uncertain facts.
I believe that epidemics of any sort provide examples of PNS. The uncertainty of the facts does not prevent the stakes from being high; there are always historical precedents to go on. Perhaps it would help if we distinguished between the ‘facts’ about causes, and the ‘stakes’ about effects. Only if both causes and effects are so poorly known as to be speculative, does an apparently PNS situation collapse. Even then it is not ‘normal’ science but something else.
There is another lesson for PNS in the ‘foot and mouth’ episode. It was presented to the public as ‘normal science’: “here’s an epidemic, let’s apply the science and stop it”. The uncertainties and value-conflicts were suppressed. More to the point, the ‘extended peer community’ was nonexistent. Divisions among the scientists were kept under wraps. Damage to the rural communities was revealed piecemeal, and then as incidental to the noble effort of quarantine. Only the investigative journal Private Eye published the gory details of the exterminations.
Again, after it was all over, Private Eye published an analysis. However rough and violent debates might be on the blogosphere (as we have seen!) still that is much better than the sort of blanket of silence that has been thrown over scientific scandals in the past.
Having cleared that point to my own satisfaction, let me now engage further with the debate. One reason for my long silence is that (amidst other obligations) I have been reflecting on what all this means for my doctrines of Post-Normal Science. I believe that I already said that this was developed rather in isolation, and did not enjoy the criticism that can come from students or colleagues. So inevitably, some issues were not raised and addressed. I am now grappling with them. Here they are.
Possible corruptions of PNS. These are inevitable. After all, what prophetic message ever escaped being converted into a battleground between priests and demagogues? But I should be more clear about which corruptions are most likely to emerge in PNS, and then to analyse and warn against them. It will painful, since I will be criticising colleagues who have been well-intentioned and loyal.
Quality. On this I find myself reduced to arm-waving, that ‘we all know what Quality is’. But I can say that I am well aware that Quality is not a simple attribute, but is complex, influenced by history and context, recursive (who guards the guardians?), fundamentally a matter of morality (if the people at the top are crooked, the whole edifice of quality-assurance collapses), and of course fallible. This may seem a very insecure foundation for the sort of knowledge that we need, but it’s the best we have. And if one looks for better guarantees of truth even in Pure Science, one will be disappointed.
I should report on a problem that took some decades to solve, relating to quality-assurance. In my old book, I made the point that quality in science depends on the ethical commitments of its leaders, for there is no effective external system for assessing quality. (I spoke from my experience as a researcher in pure mathematics – perhaps a half-dozen people would be competent to assess my work). A student pointed out that this seems to contradict my calls for greater participation in science (I then called it ‘critical science’). I thought I had covered my tracks on that one, observing that in the antagonistic debating context of that sort of science, noone would be allowed to get away with shoddy work. I even gave the example of Dr. Stockman of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People (incidentally exposing how Political Correctness led Arthur Miller to make a crucial modification of the text). But the student observed that I had assumed that the antagonistic debate would itself be of high quality! Eventually I got to some sort of resolution of the problem, admitting that the quality in PNS might indeed be very low, but giving a principle for testing its procedures. This would be ‘negotiating in good faith’, which I remembered from New Deal labor legislation, and which is now a standard criterion for negotiation. This certainly doesn’t ensure quality in PNS, but it provides a criterion. And, incidentally, it could be used to characterise the sorts of discussions that are now emerging on WUWT.
There is another unsolved problem, Truth. I realise that I have a case of what I might call ‘Dawkins-itis’ in relation to Truth. Just as Prof. Dawkins, however learned and sophisticated on all other issues, comes out in spots at the mere mention of the word ‘God’, I have a similar reaction about ‘Truth’. I must work on this. It might relate to my revulsion at the dogmatic and anti-critical teaching of science that I experienced as a student, where anyone with original ideas or questions was scorned and humiliated. I happily use the terms for other Absolutes, like ‘beauty’, ‘justice’ and ‘holy’; so clearly there is something wrong in my head. Watch this space, if you are interested.
Finally, for this phase of the dialogue, I would like to defend myself against a charge that has been made by various critics. This is, that I personally and intentionally laid the foundations for the corrupted science of the CRU, by providing the justification for Steve Schneider’s perversion of scientific integrity. First, there is no record of the guilty scientists ever mentioning, or even being aware, of PNS during the crucial earlier years. Also, shoddy and corrupted science in other fields did not wait for me to come along to justify it. My influence is traced back to a single footnote by Steven Schneider, citing an essay by me in a large, expensive book, Sustainable Development of the Biosphere (ed. W.C. Clarke and R.E. Munn), (Cambridge, University Press, 1986). PNS first came into the climate picture with the quite recent essay by Mike Hulme in 2007. That was a stage in his own evolution from modeller to critic, and came long after the worst excesses at CRU had been committed. I should say that I do not dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand, since some of them are correct! But this one really does seem far-fetched.
Thanks for your patience and good will. I look forward to further exchanges.
The bureaucrats have got very adept at making sure that the solution does not hurt the people that have most to lose. Cap and trade is clearly designed to make sure that any corporate interest which is against AGW can be silenced either by increasing carbon credits or threatening to withhold them. The whole funding of the scientists is based on their being a catastrophe. This is what makes the solutions so ineffective and expensive. If the world is about to squander as many resources as it currently appears to be doing on the precautionary principle it should be desperately checking its predictions. The silence on the analysis of the temperature records, and tree rings from the establishment is deafening.
I suppose there may be a time for worrying about climate science and whether it need become post-normal, but I’m choosing to focus on something a little more basic. For some reason, I have this simple idea that scientific research in climate starts with the use of one of the most basic of scientific instruments –the thermometer. And my focus is on trying to advance the quality of climate science by encouraging climate scientists to figure out how to use a thermometer properly. Shouldn’t that be step one?
Once our scientists are able to learn to set up thermometers and read them properly, we can move on to step two. I guess I just think it would be a good idea to try to give climate scientists a handle on understanding the basics of normal science before we try to teach climate scientists the post-normal.
I now understand why when I read your other two posts PNS seemed so familiar to me. It follows the decision making process taught to me in my Project Management Classes. PNS is not about science it is about decision making.
If you want some frank comment on your post, I would suggest getting another picture because the one that’s up there now makes you look like you’re laughing up your sleeve at the rest of us. One of the pictures of Phil Jones often used to illustrate articles about CRU when the climategate scandal first broke showed him with a similar sort of expression on his face, so maybe it’s something that’s habitual with British academic administrators. In any case it isn’t attractive, and makes me inclined to doubt anything you say …
To: T. Paul
——————————————–
T. Paul (08:44:18) :
You make a number of comparisons of Post-Normal Science (PNS) to religion
——————————————–
“……Greetings to the Church that meets at Priscilla’s house.” 1 Cor.
There was a model of Christianity. A normal Christinity. The body of ‘science’ for the Church is the bible. What has followed is Post-Normal Church and the parallels between a particular ‘churches’ and AGW is breath taking!
By denying access to the data, you can say anything you want, scare them as much as you want, and collect as much as you want even if you believe you are doing it for the good of mankind.
DR Ravetz continues to conflate 3 different disciplines under PNS:
1. Science
2. Applications of Science
3. Politics
As a physician I have learned a great deal of Science, but what I do daily is an Application of Science. This is characterized by having to make decision with considerable uncertainty of facts and amidst competing scientific issues all in the same patient. My decisions also need to incorporate Politics—–patient family politics, politics among physicians and 3rd party payers politics, not to mention government interference in what I do.
The Mad Cow epidemic included all the same issues. There is hard Science about the disease and some not so hard knowledge about the efficacy of various interventions (Applications of Science) in stopping the spread of the disease. Then there are the local and governmental politics Dr Ravetz refers to.
Conflating these different things under a name (PNS) that includes the word “Science” contains a subtle dishonesty: Science as a process produces, through reproducible experiment, knowledge that one can rely on (though skepticism is always in order). Painting the veneer of Science on the very different disciplines of Applied Science and Politics hides the grossly different type of uncertainties found in the later two.
In so-called Climate Science, there is real Science (eg., the Svensmark work on cosmic ray issues), Applications of Science (eg., weather reporting and prediction), and Politics (eg., the work of the IPCC). Conflating these has been the work of the Al Gore’s, the Hadley CRU team, etc. Calling their sort of work “Post Normal Science” lends a certain credence and elegance to something that deserves neither.
Please do not call this any kind of “science”—Post Normal or otherwise, or one is guilty of a subtle fraud, and robs something from all who seek for the approximations to the Truth (but never the Truth itself—Perfect Knowledge is unknowable and is in the realm of Faith) that real Science can produce.
KW
Ravetz states “PNS first came into the climate picture with the quite recent essay by Mike Hulme in 2007”. That’s absolute nonsense. PNS has been embedded in climate science for over fifteen years. Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch wrote a paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 80, No. 3, March 1999, entitled ‘Climate Science: An Empirical Example of Postnormal Science’, citing four of Ravetz’ papers. Bray and von Storch are big hitters. In this 1999 paper they wrote:
“the extension of the discussion to postnormal science addresses the issue at hand when…there is a high degree of uncertainty and the potential for disagreement due to empirical problems and political pressure. This characterization is consistent with the present state of climate sciences. The concept of postnormal science, then, incorporates social and epistemic relationships that exist outside of the scientific communities but that act upon programs of research…Ravetz (1990) and others have referred to the contemporary attributes of climate science as reflecting postnormal science.”
So there you go – Ravetz himself linked PNS with climate science as far back as 1990, if not before.
Then we have Tuomo M. Saloranta’s article ‘Post-Normal Science and the Global Climate Change Issue’ in Climatic Change, Volume 50, Number 4 / September, 2001, which traced the influence of Ravetz’ PNS back to the SAR in 1996. He states
“These examples however show that the compilation process of the WG I SAR and the content of its summaries obviously corelate with the philosophy of Post-Normal Science. A related empirical study of Bray and von Storch (1999) speaks to the same direction: Post-Normal Science seem to be generally at play in the contemporary climate science…Funtowicz and Ravetz’s (1992, 1993) attributes for Post-Normal Science are fulfilled in the climate change issue. Then, the SAR (IPCC, 1996a) from the WG I of the IPCC was…an example of how the philosophy of Post-Normal Science is reflected in practise [sic] in the science of global climate…the climate science around IPPC [sic] can to a relatively large extent be characterized as ‘Post-Normal’.”
These are not some obscure publications but the very journals that ‘The Team’ were publishing in, and so were absolutely mainstream. Sorry, don’t try and convince us that climatology wasn’t awash with Ravetz’ PNS for fifteen years or so – the peer-reviewed literature tells us otherwise. The suggestion that “there is no record of the guilty scientists ever mentioning, or even being aware, of PNS during the crucial earlier years” is bunkum, unless ‘early years’ is supposed to mean ‘before the 1990s’. And the suggestion given by the sentence “My influence is traced back to a single footnote by Steven Schneider, citing an essay by me in a large, expensive book, Sustainable Development of the Biosphere (ed. W.C. Clarke and R.E. Munn), (Cambridge, University Press, 1986)” is disingenuous: if that was the earliest influence, and it was mentioned merely in a footnote in 1986, that says absolutely nothing about its dramatic influence from the early 1990s when Ravetz was pushing PNS, for example his paper ‘Post-normal science: A new science for new times’ (1990).
The whole tenor of that part of Ravetz’s post is that PNS has only been influential (‘came into the picture’) in climate science in the last few years is utterly false, and he knows that’s the case as it’s a matter of public record. Ravetz tries to wriggle out of responsibility by appealing to our ignorance, when the evidence shows that he himself introduced PNS into climatology 20 years ago.
………but eventually, it ends in tears. You have deviated from what is right, true, and good, dependable, reliable, sound.
I don’t know the point of the foot and mouth story.Because measures were taken there is no way of knowing the outcome if different measures had been taken.Any government would err on the side of caution(and make sure to pay as little compensation to the farmers as possible)in that situation it is not worth risking the backlash.But to ask me to believe that governments have the best interests of the taxpayer at heart,and will plan accordingly for events that may or may not happen when they are long gone from the scene is to ask me to believe in aliens.Politicians do not jump on a band wagon unless there is something in it for them.To see how enthusiastically they have jumped on this particular band wagon is a real eye opener.
Dr. Ravetz: I must admit I need to completely review your previous posts and associated comments. The ideas associated with PNS are worthy of that review. The problems you identified today are those that have been with us since the beginning, not of science but of societies. Quality, Truth and so on fill much philosophical literature. I have personally been shrugging with them since my high school days, having first discovered Hume. I think it fair to say, these and other questions are simple to state and complex to answer. We do the subject, ourselves and each other a disservice to try in a few sentences. On my Blog at retreadresources.com/blog I have been attempting to struggle with them by writing a series of short essays. Perhaps some of these essays will help.
We can argue about Foot & Mouth and any other kind of pandemic, but whatever you choose to call the procedures that were brought to bear, they have nothing to do with “science.”
Science puts forward a hypothesis, gathers evidence to support or refute and gradually over time enough data and mechanisms are built up to give a theory. The Foot & Mouth episode was all about damage containment. The only possible reference to science is that scientists were consulted for their expert opinions on what the likely outcomes were. The fact that the “stakes were high and facts uncertain” has nothing to do with the decision of whether to do PNS or not.
Studying the climate is, or ought to be, Normal Science. If facts are uncertain, science then seeks to gather more and better data. The assertion about “stakes being high” is a circular argument. We only believe the stakes are high because that’s what the “science” is supposed to tell us. But if the proponents of CAGW are wrong, then the stakes aren’t high, and the case for PNS collapses. As Professor Ravetz himself states, “Only if both causes and effects are so poorly known as to be speculative, does an apparently PNS situation collapse.”
But that’s precisely what many sceptics are arguing – causes and effects of climate change are indeed poorly known. There is absolutely nothing in the current climate that has well understood causes and effects and the high stakes consequences are purely speculative. This is precisely the problem that is leading to ill considered panic responses from law makers.
If PNS is ever formally adopted, we can be sure to see more and more outcomes like this, and even more shrill alarmism. We need to step back from all the hype and get on with the normal science that has served us well for centuries.
HotRod (07:46:16) :
Am I alone in having no idea what Dr Ravetz is talking about? I’m not being rude, I have read it three times, and just can’t get the point(s). What are they?
==========================================
Nope HotRod you’re not alone. While the good Dr. may be brilliant at
some things……written communication does not appear to be one of
them.
Oh, for heaven’s sake!
Truth is truth. It has nothing to do with indoctrination, indeed is practically the antithesis of it. Stuff happens, has always happened, and we may sometimes have to deal with it based on incomplete understanding. Sometimes we may get it wrong; sometimes we may just have to learn from our mistakes.
FMD is nothing like CAGW. At least you can see that an outbreak is occurring and know in advance that it’s a bad thing. But with CAGW, a decision was taken that global warming was occurring beyond historical precedent and was caused by CO2, and immense resources put into “proving” (aka propagandising) that. Any dissenting voices were vilified and excluded and the mantras repeated over and over again until ordinary folk for the most part thought it must be true. Until, at last, some of the truth started to leak out.
With CAGW, there isn’t a scintilla of respect for discovering the truth. Those on the CAGW side aren’t concerned about anything that might disabuse them of their convictions. All they are concerned about is that nothing should challenge their belief system. To get their way, they will stoop to any depth. It’s just Lysenkoism by a different name, smells no sweeter, and one day will suffer the same fate, along with PNS.
Unless you start off dedicated to the discovery of truth, which is the principle that lies behind real science, then sure as eggs is eggs, you are going to end up with religion. For God’s sake, we’re centuries past the Enlightenment, and we should regress back to medievalism?
Dr. Ravetz, I urge you, give it up. This is your third outing here and the hole you’re digging for yourself just seems to be getting deeper. PNS is a nonsense concept. Come over to the light side and rediscover the fact that the truth will set you free and will out in the end… all the usual clichés. But clichés or no, they happen to be spot on. For all time, regardless of a late 20th/early 21st century aberration in human thought.
Thank you for your posting, Dr. Ravetz. As a practicing research epidemiologist, I appreciate your comparison of the AGW panic with the outbreak of FMD in the UK, where I was working at the time. Terrible tragedy, farmers were committing suicide in Devon and other livestock-producing communities.
I believe your take-home point in the FMD comparison is that, when the scientific communities and government go into full-blown panic mode, they make very hasty decisions that cost tremendous amounts of money and waste resources.
I see this as a very real threat of the “precautionary principle” as being applied to AGW…since the science of AGW has been so badly mauled and abused, the priests (as you call them) have disproportionate power and influence on policy makers. Indeed, the distinction is quite blurred.
Here’s a very good article on the general topic:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2868937.htm
This is intended to lead everyone astray of reason and common sense.
Think maybe you are to blame for “triggering” a hostile response?
Are you inferring a response that disagrees with how you feel is “lower quality”?
That is your problem buddy. The stench of peer review is one that claims all responses that agree are high quality and those that disagree are low quality.
It is ignorant for pretend scientists to say their deal is truth just because several thousands agree.
I will refer back to the FMD example you cited. Before Pasteur and others, maggots and flies coming from dead meat were examples used to peddle the theory of biogenesis and life coming from non life. ,
You are close minded. I am convinced you are not able to conduct an experiment that doesn’t have built in experimental bias. Don’t get me started on the BSE mad cow scare. It is rich with examples of defective thinking and people trying to not ask the right questions.
Math is not an answer. It is a tool.
“I believe that epidemics of any sort provide examples of PNS. The uncertainty of the facts does not prevent the stakes from being high; there are always historical precedents to go on. Perhaps it would help if we distinguished between the ‘facts’ about causes, and the ’stakes’ about effects. Only if both causes and effects are so poorly known as to be speculative, does an apparently PNS situation collapse. Even then it is not ‘normal’ science but something else.”
====
If there is a sense of urgency, quick agreement on action can be reached even when causes and effects are uncertain. The invasion of Iraq for WMD and as a response to 9/11 is an example.
If there is little sense of urgency, agreement on action may not be easy to reach even when causes and effects are known with certainty. Witness the reluctance to address the coming financial crises with Social Security.
If there is no sense of urgency, as is the case with global warming, and knowledge of causes and effects is not complete, agreement on action can be very difficult.
“This is, that I personally and intentionally laid the foundations for the corrupted science of the CRU” — In what way(s) would PNS have prevented the “corrupted science of the CRU?”
In order to convince me that GW is a real problem, you would need to convince me that:
1) The warming is unprecedented – and I don’t even believe it is even warmer than the 1930’s (25 of the US State Temperature records are from the 1930’s) and I certainly don’t believe it is warmer than the MWP and Roman Optimum.
2) 1 – 2C warmer is a problem – Epidemeologically cold is 10x bigger killer than warming
etc etc.
Thank you for your contribution, Dr Ravetz.
The disastrous handling of the foot and mouth outbreak, BSE, avian flu,e-coli in poultry, the recent Mexican swine flu are all examples of worst case computer models being ‘believed’ and the inappropriate use of the precautionary principle by politicians seeking electoral advantage.
Maybe PNS has something to say about the interface between politics and various scientific views where facts and hard data are in short supply and disputed, especially in the ‘soft sciences’ such as medicine, but it is difficult for me,at least, to see its role in engineering (all branches) for example.
If ‘climate science’ wishes to be regarded as a discipline depending on empirical data then the ‘scientists’ involved should refrain from making alarmist claims and predictions based on models which are inherently flawed. Otherwise they will be viewed as social manipulators who are about to change Western economies in a very negative way. Their interaction with politicians may well be described as post-normal science and this would not necessarily be a compliment.
Dr. Razetz,
I am not sure the foot-and-mouth incident is a good guide; global warming involves enormously larger stakes and much lower confidence in the key scientific issues of climate sensitivity to forcing and expected consequences of any future warming. In the case of foot-and-mouth disease, that some action was needed was clearly agreed to by all scientists involved; any disagreement was a matter of appropriate level of response, which under the circumstances ended up being a politically motivated choice by Tony Blaire.
I agree that most climate scientists adopt advocacy positions based on their honest evaluation of ‘the science’. But I think it is a bit naive to not consider and take into account the self-selection of those who choose to become involved in climate science: these are people who are exceptionally concerned about human degradation of the Earth’s environment, and who are politically inclined to support (indeed, vocally advocate) draconian, left-leaning political measures to minimize human influence on the environment. People who enter the field are politically and philosophically inclined to believe that human influence on Earth’s environment is inherently ‘bad’ in a purely moral sense, and to discount any value which might be assigned to economic development. It is no surprise to me that a mainly homogeneous group of scientists with strong ‘green’ inclination will be subject to expectation bias and confirmation bias, always in the directions of: a) overstating expected temperature increases, b) overstating the risks to people associated with those temperature increases, and c) understating uncertainty in projections of warming.
What makes ‘climate science’ anything other than ‘normal science’ are the obvious philosophical and political inclinations of those who choose to enter the field. My suspicion is that this will not change easily; anyone with other than ‘pure green’ political views who wishes to enter the field will very likely be subject to extreme pressure/prejudice, starting as an undergraduate student. The only way I see out of this conundrum is the active participation of non-climate scientists and engineers in critical evaluations/refutations of the research done in the field. The rise of many science-oriented climate blogs, skeptical of the consensus ‘climate science’ view is clear evidence that this process is already underway.
Michael Larkin (09:05:24) :
“FMD is nothing like CAGW. At least you can see that an outbreak is occurring and know in advance that it’s a bad thing.”
Quite so. I took Ravetz to task for his illogical argument on this before, lumping in ‘climate change’ (which has been going on for millennia, and so has a history of natural causation) with very evident and obviously abnormal diseases among populations of discrete entities. For a man who is a mathematician, it’s an unpardonable sin. As I wrote in reply to a comment in my post on this back in October
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/climate-change-and-the-death-of-science/
“Ravetz is seen to be begging the question – not a good sign in a philosopher. To include “global climate change” in a list with increasing incidences of new-variant CJD, infertility, and asthma is completely disingenuous. Those things and their trends are all relatively easily measured and diagnosed. Ravetz is not stupid – he was originally a mathematician – and he knows a lot about numbers, so he knows that he is pulling the wool over our eyes by including climate change in a list of diseases that affect populations of discrete entities. Is the incidence of “global climate change” increasing? Do we have a population of thousands of other similar earths with which to compare our earth?
Moreover, if a patient presents with CJD, you know from experience that it’s life threatening and not the natural state. You might have difficulty finding the causes and dealing with them, but you know for certain that this is not the normal state of affairs. The same can’t be said of “global climate change”. Ravetz has absolutely no grounds to say that “global climate change” is a “serious, perhaps very threatening problem”, nor should he include it in a list of things that are measurably increasing and deleterious. People have died of asthma and CJD, so there cannot be the slightest doubt that they are “serious…very threatening” – we know the likely prognoses. But climate change has been happening for thousands of years, and no one has yet been able to demonstrate that this is anything but a normal state of affairs – natural variation – nor can we make any realistic prognosis. What Ravetz has done is assume that climate change is an unnatural phenomenon with a deadly causative agent (anthropogenic, of course!) – he assumes the ‘normal’ science can tell him that, so that the ‘post-normal’ science can be applied to the allegedly difficult problems it throws up. But you don’t need policies to deal with things that haven’t been shown to be problems in the first place– don’t waste your time chasing those shadows when there are plenty of real problems in the world that can be diagnosed and dealt with.”
I realise that the FMD outbreak is only being used as an example by Dr Jerry, but since we’re on that subject….
The problem with situations where you have poor facts, poor knowledge of causes, and high stakes is that you can be frozen into immobility. With FMD, “do nothing” was not a realistic option. The problem was that “the axe was blunt”. If you stop to sharpen it then you’ve failed. The only thing you can do is to lash out with a blunt axe. Inevitably you will be shown to to have implemented an imperfect strategy, as in this case, but on the other hand the FMD outbreak was stopped, if at a rather high cost.
On AGW, I’m a sceptic. But I favour the, “there is nothing wrong with the climate”, view. But what if I’m wrong? I’m not about to change my views on AGW, but at the same time I can understand the logic of lashing out with a blunt axe!
If quality replaces truth, it should have a value, say between 0 and 1. It should then be possible to establish an algebra on it, like boolean algebra on truth values. We can, for instance, in the old fashioned world of truth say that the expression
Z := “if A is true, then it follows that B is true”
(where Z denotes whether the quoted sentence is true)
can be expressed with this truth table:
A B Z
0 0 1
0 1 1
1 0 0
1 1 1
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logicus Philosophicus talks a little bit about this.
How would this look like if we tried to replace truth with “PNS quality”?
I don’t see a clear philosophical or mathematical basis here. Granted, Gödel has proved that no axiomatic system can be described completely within itself, but i don’t even see the beginning of such a description in PNS.
“Post Normal Science” seems to me to be a poor label for the phenomenon – but the phenomenon has been identified pretty well. Clearly part of the phenomenon is what I might half-jokingly call “sub-canonical science”, but it’s only a part. Part, as someone said above, is to do with decision-making, but the central feature, it seems to me, is the positive feedback between the desire for decision-making and the purported science that is used to justify it. The key part is that the prospect of decisions that confer power/fame/wealth on people provides incentives for lousy science – science that lacks competence, critical thinking, and propriety; sometimes, science that is plain dishonest. We’re now in the preposterous position that a hypothesis that was worth entertaining – that man’s releases of CO2 might have a measurable effect on climate – has had heaps of money spent on it and yet, after 20 years or more, we have no evidence worth a damn. Even more absurd, in that same 20 years or more, the value of the temperature observations that have been made over the last century and a half has actually been degraded, by virtue of “adjustments” that have been made. And, meantime, the public will slowly come to have less and less patience to listen to “scientists” on any topic.
By the by, I thought that picking out Foot-and-Mouth as an analogy was pretty good – the Science was much simpler, and yet the attractions of moral corruption proved mighty.