Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. sends word of this via email. I’m a bit amused, but not surprised, as we know WUWT has been pushing the traditional media envelope, and we often tackle subjects they can’t or won’t. I liked this statement about skeptical blogs:
They serve as extended peer communities as put forth by post-normal science, however, blog users themselves do not see post-normal science as a desirable goal.
She’s got that right. Just wait til she sees what is coming up next. – Anthony
CSTPR Noontime Seminar
Fall 2012 Series
Thursdays 12:00 – 1:00 PM
The Communications-Policy Nexus
Media, messages, and decision making
* Tuesday September 11, 2012
THE CONTRARIAN DISCOURSE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE: WHAT ARE BLOGS GOOD FOR ANYWAY?
by Franziska Hollender, Institute for Social Studies of Science, University of Vienna
CSTPR Conference Room, 1333 Grandview Avenue
Free and open to the public
The media serve to inform, entertain, educate and provide a basis for discussion among people. While traditional media such as print newspapers are facing a slow decline, they are being outpaced by new media that add new dimensions to public communication with interactivity being the most striking one. In the context of climate change, one question has arisen from recent events: what to do with the contrarians? Some propose that the contrarian discourse is merely an annoying sideshow, while others think that it is science’s responsibility to fight them. Blogs, being fairly unrestricted and highly interactive, serve as an important platform for contrarian viewpoints, and they are increasingly permeating multiple media spheres.
Using the highly ranked blog ‘Watts up with that’ as a case study, discourse analysis of seven posts including almost 1600 user comments reveals that blogs are able to unveil components and purposes of the contrarian discourse that traditional media are not. They serve as extended peer communities as put forth by post-normal science, however, blog users themselves do not see post-normal science as a desirable goal. Furthermore, avowals of distrust can be seen as linguistic perfomances of accountability, forcing science to prove its reliability and integrity over and over again. Finally, it is concluded that the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis and that in order to advance the discourse, there needs to be a change in how science as an ideology is communicated and enacted.
========================================================
http://cires.colorado.edu/calendar/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=605
Can anyone go? Pielke Jr. reports he will be traveling.
That can be disproved by an analysis of all the climate change stories in the Reader’s Guide to periodical Literature for any given recent year. This would be a good Master’s thesis. Or maybe Big Oil could grease my palm and I’d do it myself.
Finally it is concluded that the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis and that in order to advance the discourse there needs to be a change in how science as an ideology is communicatated and enacted.
This is rather an amazing sentence. First some of the pieces need explanation.
SCIENCE AS AN IDEOLOGY — The reader may not recognize it but this is her definition of “post-normal science”. Switch out the the two phrases and the line becomes clear. THERE NEEDS TO BE A CHANGE IN HOW POST-NORMAL SCIENCE IS COMMUNICATATED AND ENACTED.
iN ORDER TO ADVANCE THE DISCOURSE — People fail to realize that a discourse is essentially a monologue — meaning the speech of one person. IT IS NOT A CONVERSATION WHICH INVOLVES TWO OR MORE PEOPLE. :You can’t have a discourse if you allow others to speak.
THE CLIMATE CHANGE DISCOURSE HAS BEEN STIFLED BY THE OBSESSION OF DISCUSSING THE SCIENCE BASIS — This is simply a recognition that they are losing the science battle — so instead we will get much scare mongering. We see this already in the new emphaisis on “extreme weather events”. How clearer can it be stated that Global Warming or Climate Change or whatever new term they come up with is no longer about science. IT IS ALL PROPAGANDA.
Taken as a whole the sentence says that “real science” is no longer useful to them in attaining their agenda. “Post-normal science” is to be totally disconnected from “real science”. Surprisingly “real science” had a place in “post-normal science” when “post normal science” was first conceived — it was to supply at least the appearance of an underpinning for their political agenda — but now the disconnect is to be total. From here on out they are just going to make it all up, shout and scream, intimiadate, bribe, etc.
What type of people would lap this crap up? Self-centered, greedy, power hungary people who totally believe in their own moral superiority. That pretty much describes a believer in “post-normal science” — or so think I.
Eugene WR Gallun
Science and ideology are mutualy exclusive.
.
One deals exclusively in observation and reality while the other deals exclusively in lies and delusion.
Max Hugoson says:
September 1, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Ah – HA! And it right there, my friend, that you would be mistaken. Here, for example, are two post-normal aeronautical engineers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canberra_Baloon_Fiesta_2006.jpg
Now that I’ve re-read all of the comments, thanks to all others who attempted to answer my rhetorical question “what is a simple definition of post normal science?” As mentioned above, I had entered it as a vehicle to get the speaker (in this case, the “social studies of science” folks) to define what they mean by post normal science that it is said we disagree with. Once the statement has been made, the differences between post normal science and “real” science can be made. As they have so eloquently been made within the comments. I particularly enjoyed Gail Combs @2:23 and Smokey @3:07.
I’m interested in further discussion with Jerome. My background is in Engineering, so my worldview is a little different from yours. Different people with different knowledge and priorities will disagree about what the largest threat is, and what the appropriate level of response should be. What deciding mechanism do you favour (links to or keywords from previous writings that answer would be a perfect response – I didn’t see anything about this in your post at Tallblokes)? In the context of AGW, for most of the last 100,000 years the geographic location of my house has usually been covered by ice 1 mile thick. I want to delay the ice returning to this “normal” state, When the ice returns to this “normal” state, my nation of Canada will cease to exist. Others argue that increasing global temperature by a degree or two would be catastrophic, I look at the scour marks hundreds of meters up on local mountains and know the damage that normal, natural cycles can do. When worldviews differ regarding how far out a credible threat is and whether it should be considered, and when the “solutions” of one threat can actively cause (or at least ignore) another threat of equal or greater danger, then how should these choices be made? Note that this is a political question, not a scientific one. Either side can quote science (or note how the other side is ignoring science). As an engineer I need a good level of proof and some solid theories (including their falsification criteria) before I’m willing to make big changes.
Digging around in a few obscure posts, found these important tenets of Postnormal Science
factualizing sociological data and socializing the facts, allowing easy movement around them
unhitching language from reality in order to find deeper interpretations of truth
bridging the gap between imaginary crises and postnormal “solutions”
auctioning off your own solutions to the highest bidder
rationalizing all of the above as science
I was talking with a friend one day I cannot remember the topic but they made this comment “If you educate an idiot all you get is an educated idiot not a clever person”.
The company I work for loves employing graduates and fast tracks them upwards, but when they turn up at work they seem to fall into two groups those who think that as they have been to university they know it all, or those who have learned that if you listen to those with experience you will learn.
James Bull
Futhermore avowals of distrust can be seen as linguistic performances of accountability, forcing science to prove its reliability and integrity over and over again.
This is girl thinks stringing big words together makes her look smart and that for fear of looking stupid no one will suggest that her words are so much turkey gobble. This is one of the most stupid lying sentences ever written by a human being. To break the code —
Avowals of distrust — Freedom of information requests for publicly owned data that should have been supplied when the scientists involved originally published — without which replication is impossible..
Linguistic performances of accountability — Linguistic is being used to mean “verbal not actual”. In other words she is saying that the claim that the information obtained by an FOI will be used to replicate the “science” is a lie. The FOI’s are only being filed to harass.the scientists who recieve them. The claim to want to replicate the “science” is only a “verbal performance”.
Forcing science to prove its reliabiltiy and integrity over and over again — What a lie! Those scienctist ignore the FOI’s or they send misleading information. Therefore they get sent another and then another. And its data paid for with public money and that should have been made public when the original papers using it were published. They don’t send the real data becasue they know their work can’t stand inspection.
Science — This is girl advocates “post-normal science” The scienctists who receive FOI’s are all doing post-normal science. The line should read — forcing POST-NORMAL SCIENCE to prove its reliability and integrity over and over again. Post-normal science has no reliability and is being done by people totally lacking in integrity.
And this girl actually thinks she is highly educated and deserves to have her education furthered by public monies?????? She will get it — and I bet they will give this bimbo a MacArthur Genius Grant also. She has the right politics. .
Eugene WR Gallun
What a drivel. That blurb could have been computer-generated, just like post-modern philosophy, and nobody would be able to tell the difference.
pat says:
September 1, 2012 at 7:47 pm
has anyone posted the full program to take place from 13-15 sept, with a list of speakers/presenters almost as long as a telephone directory?
Culture, Politics, and Climate Change
AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER
SEPTEMBER 13-15, 2012
Please see page 24 for a list of CHPS speakers and session information.
http://www.climateculturepolitics.com/docs/CPCCONLINEProgramFinal.pdf
>>>Thanks for posting that, Pat – I was unaware of this, occurring right under my nose. It’s looking less like a Klan metting and more like a Woodstock of Ecobabblers. No way could I sit though three days of this rubbish, much less pay the price of admission. I’d learn more at a Grateful Dead concert for less money. The saddest thing is that there’s 200+ presenters, most of whom are paid by the taxpayer to invent justifications for policies that will raise the price of living and cost us even more.
Leif Svalgaard: “Splitting hairs wrongly.”
Well, then there’s nothing further to be gained in helping your understand a foreign language.
“So on the basis of the beauty of the theory, Dirac postulated that both solutions described physical reality, and sure enough, antimatter was later discovered experimentally. ”
And it remains that if we had no clue as to what Dirac’s theory was, or why he came to it, that the empirical results would be unaltered. This is a rather simple issue. Simply ask yourself: Does reality change if we are unaware of the rationalizations people have about that reality?
tallbloke:
Your post addressed to me at September 1, 2012 at 5:34 pm can only be either disingenuous or severely mistaken.
You claim we should accept and participate in PNS because you say
Corruption is not defeated by adopting the corrupt practices. That only institutionalises the corruption.
Richard
Brendan H:
Thankyou for attempting to clarify your position in your post addressed to me at September 1, 2012 at 6:26 pm where you say
And therein lies your error.
There is no proper “relationship beween the two” and any attempt to make such a “relationship” harms both.
Politics uses information of all kinds obtained from all available sources.
Science generates information by use of a philosophical method.
Hence, politics will use information generated by science, but any “relationship” between the two can only be a relationship of politicians as masters and scientists as slaves. The inevitable result is Lysenkoism, and this is why totalitarians attempt to create relationships between politics and science.
US President Eisenhower specifically warned that this danger was being created by the financial relationship between government and research institutions. Decades on and we have PNS being promoted to formalise the “relationship between the two”.
Richard
No need for this waste of yet more money. Ms Hollender should simply pick up the phone and have a long philosophical discussion with one Mike Hulme who, having promoted Ravetz’s horse[snip] so loudly, has [perhaps not so] curiously distanced himself from it of late. Or she could pick up the trail here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/27/uea-climate-scientist-possible-that-i-p-c-c-has-run-its-course
John Ravetz: Not sure how I missed your post previously; apologies for that.
“Let’s try: when facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent, the paradigm-based puzzle-solving research confined to closed sets of practitioners is not adequate.”
Which is the same as stating: When there are no facts, there is a difference of opinion, and at least one group holds an opinion of urgency, then science qua Thomas Kuhn is inadequate.
Left unsaid is why we should give any credence to an opinion of urgency whether held only by one group or by all involved groups. For example, if there is a religious sect that holds a strong opinion that doomsday is next Thursday after the hot-wing specials end then science is surely inadequate. But it begs the question as to why a given group’s values should matter over another’s, or at all, if there are no facts.
“Then there must be an ‘extended peer community’, using ‘extended facts’ which include traditional research results along with open criticism, plus data from non-traditional sources, and expressions of value commitments. Then there must be an ‘extended peer community’, using ‘extended facts’ which include traditional research results along with open criticism, plus data from non-traditional sources, and expressions of value commitments.”
There must be…. why? We are left in the dark due a lack of expression of your value commitment.
“Experience has shown that in such cases, which include all areas closely connected with policy, the ‘extended peer community’ plays a very positive role, not merely in legitimating accepted results but also in criticising controversial results. ”
Which seems a rather tortured manner in which to state the paradigmatic views of Democracy as a manner of governance.
Throughout I cannot find anything that distinguishes your notion of PNS from that of plain Political Activism, save using the symbol ‘science’ as a patina to respectability.
You mentioned on Tallbloke’s blog that the term has rather gotten a life of its own; and this is surely the case. But your definition as provided here doesn’t explain the necessity of PNS, nor any differences to distinguish it from standard political discourse.
Richard111 says:
September 1, 2012 at 10:21 am
I’m lost again. What is post-normal science?
Rich111,
Post-normal science is also known as ‘Abby-normal’ science, or ABnormal science for short. the definition was first elucidated in the Mel Brooks farce Young Frankenstein. Marty Feldman (Igor) procures an Abby Normal brain for the monster Frankenstein…. and ABnormal (aka post-normal) science has been a farce ever since. Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/yH97lImrr0Q
MtK
I don’t often but in this case I tend to agree with Steve Mosher, because of the dreadful style used in putting the words down some are reading into what was said that which isn’t really there
James Sexton says:
September 1, 2012 at 11:03 am
…what is traditionally thought of when referencing climate science is an ideology. And then there’s the ideology which believes science should have a large role in human governance.
Science should have a role in human governance; it should have a role in probably most things at one level or another. I don’t see anything ideological about that. My problem is when “human governance” has a role in science.
Leif Svalgaard says: September 1, 2012 at 5:03 pm
Perhaps the best example is Dirac’s prediction of antimatter. In the theory there was a square root. The square roots of 4 are +2 and -2. So on the basis of the beauty of the theory, Dirac postulated that both solutions described physical reality, and sure enough, antimatter was later discovered experimentally.
Hi doc.
Nice one. We also have irrational numbers and than we also have imaginary numbers, without either of which modern science would be crippled.
In accordance (to follow our hero Dirac) I often present both irrational and imaginary hypothesis. I expect and looking forward to your support in future. 🙂
The “normal” in post normal science refers to Kuhn’s notion of Normal science.
In “normal” science, science that occurs under a paradigm, scientists view their activity as puzzle solving. Filling in bits and pieces of a framework that everyone accepts.
Post normal science, first and foremost, DESCRIBES the situation scientists find themselves in.
The situation can be describes by these factors.. which are unlike Kuhnian Normal Science
1. Facts are uncertain: people disagree about fundamental Facts.
2. Values, moral values, are in conflict: science when it is discussed is shot through with
commentary about values
3. The stakes are high. Science discussions quickly turn into discussions about what things
cost.
4. Some parties demand immediate action because of the high stakes, other parties demand
no action because the facts are uncertain.
That is Post normal science.. as a DESCRIPTION of the situation that scientists find themselves in.
Post normal science as a PRACTICE is not very well defined. The question is really how do you get back to a normal situation… not very easily.
10 years from now when its warmer, so people will still deny it. same way they deny that there is less ice this year than last year. Science as a method cannot deal with people who refuse to accept the facts.
They serve as extended peer communities as put forth by post-normal science, however, blog users themselves do not see post-normal science as a desirable goal.
This little girl has a peanut for a brain. “Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.” People who are involved in that systematic enterprise we call “scientists”. The overriding interest of the vast majority of people who sign-in at WUWT is the preservation of “science”. Yet only a few people at WUWT are actually engaged in doing science. The vast majority of people at WUWT are making no claim to be contribting to science.
The best way to describe POST-NORMAL SCIENCE is to say that it is NOT a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. It is pseudo-science. Since post-normal science draws the infomation it uses to promote its “beliefs” (what other word can you use?) from many groups of people who are not scientists it is possible to say that anyone who expresses any type of opinion about anything is contributing to post-normal science. Therefore since the sources of post-normal science are so broad it is possible to say that bloggers on WUWT are regular contributers to post-normal science. “They are one of the extended peer communities as put forth by post-normal science” who contribute to post-normal science consensus.
In the past politicians have tried to use “science” to formulate policy. And the public has a great respect for “science” since it has created our modern civilization. The crazy left has always tried to cloak its “beliefs” as science (Marxism is science????) but today we see something different. The crazy left has simply decided to redefine “science” into something to its liking. Science is no longer about testable explanations and predictions about the universe. It has become post-modern science — and draws it conclusions largely from unreliable data sources. And these conclusions are never to be questoned or tested. Everyone can contribute to post-modern science — but like all things on the left only a few select people at the top are allowed to draw conclusion.
So to sum it all up post-normal science is just the left using the cover word “science” to lend credence to a purely self-seeking poltical agenda. Go read — POST NORMAL SCIENCE — a paper by S.Funtowicz and J. Ravetz. They make it perfectly clear that it is all about politics.
For those interested there is a paper on the internet titled — POST NORMAL SCIENCE —
BY S. Funtowixz and J. Ravetz.
EWRG
Steven Mosher:
I fail to understand the point of your post at September 2, 2012 at 1:04 am.
I would be grateful if you were to read my post addressed to you at September 1, 2012 at 4:49 pm which addresses an earlier post from you and, having done that, please explain how your more recent post answers my point.
Of course you are right when you say in your recent post,
“Science as a method cannot deal with people who refuse to accept the facts”.
But I refrain from making a personal remark and merely present my request that you answer my post which rejected your earlier assertion.
Richard
Hey, Mosher,
We were supposed to have 40,000,000 climate refugees by 2010! Where are they? The prediction has been pushed back to 2020. So in eight years when there are still no climate refugees will you renouce your warmism?
Eugene WR Gallun
By the way you dont have the faintest idea what Post Normal Science is about.
30 Aug: BBC: Paul Hudson: Summer 2012 – 2nd wettest on record
So far 367mm of rain has fallen, compared with 384mm which was recorded in 1912.
It’s also been the dullest summer since 1980, and cool, with mean temperatures 0.4C below average.
It adds to a depressing sequence of summers across the country, with the last 6 years all being wetter than average.
Moreover 2 of the 3 wettest summers on record have happened in that time – 2007 and 2012…
The big question is why is the jet stream behaving in this way?
There are two current theories, which I detailed in my earlier blog which you can read here.
One is linked to melting Arctic ice, which fell to a satellite record low on Monday.
The other theory suggests it’s down to the protracted low solar activity over the last few years, as happened in the early 1800’s.
And if the early 1800’s are anything to go by, poor summers and cold winters may be something we need to get used to in the next few years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2012/08/summer-2012—2nd-wettest-on-r.shtml