This is a quick summary Jerry Ravetz wrote at my request last year of a much longer book on the subject he co-wrote with Silvio Funtowitz in 1990 called Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy
Quality
To start, ‘quality’ now means ‘goodness’. But it is not a simple property. In fact, it is complex, recursive and moral. First, for any thing or action, there are a plurality of attributes of quality, each of which will have its own criteria and standards. These do not come from nowhere; for each there will be a social system that defines and then monitors them. This immediately raises the question in the Latin motto, ‘who guards the guardians?’
For each answer, the question is reiterated, and so there is a recursive process. The tasks are different, at the different levels; and ultimately there is a sanction in an informal, perhaps indefinable thing called ‘public opinion’. We see this most clearly in the case of school exams, where children are tested by special agencies, and these are inspected by other agencies, up to the political level where a Minister is responsible; and (as happened not long ago) if things go very wrong then the Minister resigns because public opinion has made their position untenable.
There is a distinction between quality control and quality assurance; the latter refers to the total complex process. The maintenance of quality is very much a moral process. This is because it is impossible to make a complete specification of tasks at the lowest level; evasion of imposed standards is always possible. Hence if operatives do not believe in the system to some extent, it will fail. Their adherence to the system will depend on their morale, and that is conditioned by what they observe of the behavior of those who govern them. In that sense, corruption starts at the top.
Science is exceptional among systems of production in that its quality-assurance is largely informal. There can be no testers with go/no-go gauges at the end of the research line. Because of this, it must necessarily be self-policing. This enables a greater flexibility and subtlety in its actions, thus distinguishing between encouraging the best and discouraging the worst. But it also makes it vulnerable to corruption. I explored this topic in my old book, and there came to the paradoxical conclusion that the achievement of objective knowledge about the external world depends on the strength of the ethical commitments of the leaders of a community.
Problems with severe uncertainties and high decision-stakes are so different from those of ‘normal science’ that its traditionally-trained practitioners are not fully competent to assess quality in that sphere. Hence the ‘extended peer community’ has a vital role to play.
Of course, the conclusion of all this is that quality cannot be assessed with certainty.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
PNS has nothing to do with Science. It is about politics. Real science is about truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Politics is about expedencies, make the facts fit the needs. This leads to fraud. Post Normal Science has been used to excuse sloppy work and confidence scams. This has no value in the search for the truth. pg
This piece isn’t about PNS or politics. It’s about people doing their job properly. I’ve now followed Judy Curry’s lead and excised the reference which seems to switch people off before they read the substantive part. I’ve also edited out what seems to me to be a value judgement at the end. Please take a close look at what’s left. Bolding is mine.
Tallbloke,
I find physical evidence has no merit or bearing in climate science. Just following a procedure to the exclusion of anything that does not have numbers to fit into this as it has to be entered into a model.
Question is how many years is it going to take for climate science to change?
This planet is changing far quicker than what climate science will ever understand.
Well Joe, if the planet changes quickly, that should help untangle the relative strengths of the factors which cause climate change. But we need to be sure no-one is adjusting the data in accord with their pet theory. You know, like Trenberth saying the data must be wrong, and then someone dropping the argo buoys which show a bigger fall in OHC. Doubtless some were faulty, but you do have to wonder if bias crept in to the selection because people thought ‘it must be wrong’.
@P.G.Sharrow: I do agree with your thoughts about PNS. I wonder if Dr.J.Ravetz would apply his uncertainty principles , as an example, on Kabbalah, which is a traditional cosmology. If science reaches CERTAINTY about universal laws, these are not a matter of opinion or like or dislike, it is a matter of mathematical and empirical proof.
If any theory on global warming/climate change can not be reproduced empirically, say in a lab, then it is not UNCERTAIN, it is simply FALSE, and no doubts or “uncertainty principle”could be called upon to justify political/economical measures to be taken which will certainly affect the lives/well being of people.
“Post Normal Science has been used to excuse sloppy work and confidence scams. This has no value in the search for the truth.”
The ideas contained in Ravetz’ Post normal science writings do not excuse sloppy work or confidence scams. In fact it exactly says these must be guarded against, especially when the conditions Ravetz says post-normal science arises in. This is a common misunderstanding. Ravetz isn’t trying to say post-normal science is better than real, old fashioned, properly done science. It isn’t. He is saying that when facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high , and decisions (as the actors involved perceive) urgent, this is what happens.
In no way does it excuse sloppy or deceptive science work. What it does is highlight the danger that it will occur under these conditions, and that we need an ‘extended peer community’ at these times to act as guardians.
The sceptical blogosphere is part of the extended peer community, and it is doing its job well, much to Ravetz’ delight.
Read again what he says:
“Science is exceptional among systems of production in that its quality-assurance is largely informal. There can be no testers with go/no-go gauges at the end of the research line. Because of this, it must necessarily be self-policing. This enables a greater flexibility and subtlety in its actions, thus distinguishing between encouraging the best and discouraging the worst. But it also makes it vulnerable to corruption. Problems with severe uncertainties and high decision-stakes are so different from those of ‘normal science’ that its traditionally-trained practitioners are not fully competent to assess quality in that sphere. Hence the ‘extended peer community’ has a vital role to play.”
Tallbloke,
What climate science has yet to realize is that the past data temperature will be of no use due to the planetary changes.
What data can be charted when it has never been experienced by us before?
So future data will show new low temperatures and yet they still fail to follow the precipitation patterns.
My only understanding of the pn concept is from bolg discussions like this one so take this with a grain of salt. IIRC, it seems to me that pn can be useful as a paradigm for political scientists – a frame of reference for understanding science as a political institution. However, the core principals in the practice of science must be built on objective truths and ideals. No one can deny that science is subject to the same political forces as the society which spawns it. It just seems to me that the concepts of pns are beyond the scope of the processes for conducting science.
Speaking of quality, FWIW I believe that collection and maintenance of raw climate data sets should be subject to objective quality systems with third party audits analagous to ISO. Processed data sets are a tougher call but as long as the the processes are subject to scrutiny and the raw data is pristine then we have the basis for progress.
Joe,
You seem to be saying something about non-linearity. Another big area of uncertainty in climate science.
LL yes, this is what we were getting at in the example of output from Lisbon thread. Proper agreed standards and open access to data and code.
“the core principals in the practice of science must be built on objective truths and ideals. No one can deny that science is subject to the same political forces as the society which spawns it. It just seems to me that the concepts of pns are beyond the scope of the processes for conducting science.”
The idea is science conducts itself properly, including the ethical and moral dimension, honestly communicates uncertainties, and assists in evaluating them in relation to the needs of policy makers. This is done within a framework which allows for other people to disagree with expert interpretations of uncertain data, and bring their own ‘extended facts’, e.g. leaked documents such as the CRU emails to the debate too.
The worry is, that PNS, when there is “UNCERTAINTY”, advices to take action; that´s the troublesome part if those “extended peers” are not really peers but political “masses” driven to act, even with altruistic purposes, like “saving the world” or avoiding an impending and imaginary armageddon.
Uncertainty has existed as the logical principle of “doubt”, as a valid source for knowledge, for research , aiming at a final test or reproducible proof, but never as a kind of deviated “moral principle” to innovate or to change the “stato quo”.
“We don´t know….so..push the button!” kind of thing was behind Chernobyl…
PNS belongs under the heading of Political Science. Among the “talking heads” it is used as a talking point for a rush to judgment. “Post normal science says everyone must act now as We have determined the the world is coming to a bad end”. Some of us say that we don’t have near enough information to make any such determination. If Jerome Ravetz believes his work is being badly used then he must correct that impression among
those that use it. Point out that PNS is an “observation of bad science” not a example of how science should be done because there is not enough time for “normal science”. pg
These are valid concerns. Mike Hulme of the CRU wrote a piece in 2007 which made use of PNS concepts. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/mar/14/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange This is where a lot of the sceptical objection to the ideas originates. At that time, Ravetz pretty much accepted the ‘official’ line about global warming, so didn’t object to Hulme’s characterisation, which is a carefully worded script which leaves much unsaid. The scales were lifted off his eyes by climategate, and the communication I entered into with him over the last year.
What I find interesting, is that his concepts actually support the sceptic position far more strongly than they ever supported the mainstream position. From a philosophical standpoint, this indicates to me that the content is reasonably ideology free, since it can be interpreted as supportive by both sides.
The issue is, that because the sceptical blogosphere was excluded until very recently, the fine words about ‘the extended peer community’ don’t square with the way that power politics held the line. I don’t think this can be laid at Ravetz door though, since he is not the ruler of the world. I think we should give him some credit for working to bring the two sides to a more equal footing since he realised that the climate question was still wide open. Better late than never?
“Problems with severe uncertainties and high decision-stakes are so different from those of ‘normal science’ that its traditionally-trained practitioners are not fully competent to assess quality in that sphere.”
This type of problem with “severe uncertainties and high decision-stakes” seems at rough glance to merit new flexibilty for standards, and greater complexity in terms of what “quality” means.
However, that is a false premise and so no conclusions following are sound. Building an airplane that safely transports passengers, or creating a radio frequency that safely passes through healthy brain tissue and destroys a tumor, would also qualify as having many uncertainties and high decision-stakes. Lives will be lost or saved. Many people with differing motives, stakes, opinions, theories, levels of experience, and powers of observation will be involved with the process. Despite the recursive nature of human perception, these groups of scientists, as well as their financiers and their leaders, must come up with something that works, is repeatable, is cost-effective, improves human life, and makes accurate predictions which routinely come to pass.
Politicians would never be willing to go see a post normal neurologist or cardiologist, I guarantee you that. That is the meaning of what I am saying. Likewise, no one can accept the destruction and reconstruction of our natural life-lines (economic and individual autonomy) based on a new category of government science.
The extended peer-review community which Prof Ravetz recognizes in his writings does indeed provide sunshine to dark places. Unless the President needs to turn the sunshine off:
Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet “Kill Switch”
A revised version of a bill giving the President power over the internet in an emergency includes new language saying that the federal government’s designation of vital Internet or other computer systems “shall not be subject to judicial review.”
Hi Zeke,
The passage you quoted is saying:
“When science is put under a lot of pressure to come up with something when the data and theory is poorly defined and quantified, there is a high risk the quality of the output will be questionable, and the people who produced it might not be the best ones to assess its quality.”
In the case of climate science I doubt many sceptics would disagree. The fact that the climate scientists at the centre of the climategate scandal resisted all offers of help from expert statisticians should have set the alarm bells ringing long ago.
There is no such thing as a ‘post-normal scientist’. The concept defines a situation, not a method or a class of person. I don’t know how many times I’ll need to repeat this.
The question is: how do you deal with the situation.
The sceptical stance has been to ask “What urgency?”
It’s a fair question, but when the scientists and the policy makers have already agreed that the situation is urgent, we are faced with a de-facto situation. There are lessons here for the future.
Tallbloke,
Politicians have tied too much to the AGW theory that even if the planet froze solid, they would still show the IPCC documents as proof of following science.
Current scientists have been dropping the “global warming causes cooling” bit without a shred of evidence.
So this is going to be an exercise in failure with a great deal of time wasted when solid science and knowledge could be explored.
Many people will die due to this as scientists and peer-review reputations are on the line.
Already food prices are starting to be affected.
This summer will be massively colder due to the extremely early snows that never melted all winter. Usually there are mild spells in between so some snows melt and run off. This year had been very different, so spring will have tons of run off and the cloud cover still has still been expanding.
Joe, it may well come to pass that momma nature will give the politicians and climate gurus a spanking they won’t forget in a hurry. Time will tell.
Meantime, we can get on with the real science. 😉
On the contrary, he is arguing for the existence a sphere of science which does not conform to what practitioners of “normal” science expect to be able to acheive or explain.
“traditionally-trained practitioners are not fully competent to assess quality in that sphere.”
Also, medical scientists have been working with extremely high risk situations and pressure from higher-ups to meet time, policy, and cost parameters for a very long time. This is not a peculiar situation for science at all. Standards are met when a theory or invention provides accurate predictions, deeper appreciation, tangible and desirable services, and keys to new discoveries and interrelationships. Even the free market is able to assess the “quality” of science.
Well on the positive side of all of this talk about post-normal science is that the people I, Zeke, elect, can go to the other scientists who say that climate is interrelated with solar activity in such-and-way (or in this way or in that way). Then my elected official can make the high-stakes decision that it is going to get colder, and that food needs to be cheaper. So this scientist and this other policy maker can say, “We need to drill in ANWR and roll back the Federal Land Ombudsman Act so that states can dig up more coal, and reduce restrictions so energy is cheaper.”
So I have helped the Prof. find more people who have “a vital role to play” besides the “extended peer review community,” and those are: the scientists who work on alternative hypotheses, the public representatives who listen to them, and the public who voted.
Hi Zeke,
Just off the top of my head, a few of the differences between medical innovation and climate science:
Medical science has:
Well laid down procedures and standards to work to.
The benefit of controlled experiments which isolate the effect of the innovation
Accurate data in the form of blood pressure, brain activity, skin temperature etc
Procedures in place for purity, quality control, results logging, a culture of recording negative results.
Huge oversight with heavy consequences for flouting the rules.
Hi tallbloke, wonderfully put.
And yet the stakes and pressure are no less in either situation – so where is this professor’s argument going?!
He’s putting a lot of emphasis on agreed standards. We started work on this at Lisbon, see the thread I posted a couple of days ago on one output from Lisbon.
tallbloke,
You can excise the term Post Normal Science, but it is more the content of that philosophy, not the term used to identify it, that is objectionable.
Excising the term may make it more difficult to notice the objectionable content quickly , given that it is couched in (I would argue purposefully) ambiguous language … but does behaviour like that live up to the moral and ethical standards that the content itself calls for?
You seem to find some value in some of what is represented to you as PNS – I dont disagree with that. I see some value in some of the concepts presented as well. But understand that PNS is a package, and some parts of it are not so benign. I would argue that the parts we both find useful are not specific to PNS, but the anti-science components are. Dont hide it, from us or yourself.
Addressing the specific topic … the excerpt is titled ‘Quality’. And ‘quality’ is certainly an important component of PNS. ‘Quality’ is what PNS offers to substitute for scientific knowledge i.e. truth. That is very important, indeed. Yet for all of the talking about ‘quality’ in this piece, ‘quality’ is left undefined. Not surprising that it concludes that ‘quality’ cannot be assessed with certainty, given that any assessmnet of ‘quality’, certain or not, would require at minimum the missing definitiion of same.
And this:
“Problems with severe uncertainties and high decision-stakes are so different from those of ‘normal science’ that its traditionally-trained practitioners are not fully competent to assess quality in that sphere. Hence the ‘extended peer community’ has a vital role to play.”
Amounts to self serving assertion. Claiming that us regular old ‘normal’ scientists are not fully competant to assess ‘quality’ (whatever that turns out to be) and thus require PNS politicos … well, that certainly is convenient.
It is nice for us to think that someone is offering us something, by referring to the ‘extended peer community’, but again, PNS is a package deal. Understand that we dont need PNS in order to extend the scientific peer community. We can (and have) do that already, without setting ourselves up to accept bastardization of science that the rest of PNS engenders.
Nor should we get all warm and fuzzy, thinking that the ‘extended peer community’ means us. To the contrary, PNS provides a new means for the entrenched to exclude scientists from the peer community. It legitimizes ad hominem attacks (under the guise of ‘expertise’ and ‘examination of values’ and the aforementioned, ill defined ‘quality’) in place of scientific response. Witness Hulme’s attack on Lindzen’s book. No need to address the scientific content with facts and logic, simply impugn the alleged motives and values of the scientist. That is precisely what Hulme did, and he invoked PNS by name and in detail while doing it.
We need better science, not politics masquerading as science. We need science that can admit when it does not know, and accept the implications of that, not ‘science’ that attempts to cover up its ignorance with allusions to ‘quality’ and ‘extended facts’ and ‘values’. We need politics that can admit that science cannot supply all the facts we might want, and that accepts the implications of that. We dont need politics that plays on the lack of scientific knowledge, using ‘uncertainty’ as a substitute for scientific knowledge, while claiming the mantle of science.
The product is more than the sales pitch. The law is more than the preamble.
JJ
Hi JJ, and thanks for stopping by.
I was asleep in the UK when you posted and then took some time to review your comments on Judy Curry’s Lisbon threads after waking so forgive me the time it took to approve your comment.
There are quite a few objections to Ravetz’ work in your comment, so I’ll take them in order.
“it is couched in (I would argue purposefully) ambiguous language … but does behaviour like that live up to the moral and ethical standards that the content itself calls for?”
Jerry is a subtle philosopher of science and doesn’t see things in terms of black and white. His stuff probably appears nuanced and obscure to people more used to the definite statements made by scientists and politicians. Having talked with Ravetz extensively by email and now in person, my personal judgement is that his ethics and morals are just fine. He’s an honest injun.
“I would argue that the parts we both find useful are not specific to PNS, but the anti-science components are.”
Well, it’s the only philosophy I’ve come across that argues for the legitimacy of bringing leaked documents to the policy making table. If you know of another, tell us where we can find it. I don’t see Ravetz analysis of PNS as anti-science, more that it tries to correct science back onto the path of rationality when it gets out of whack.
“‘Quality’ is what PNS offers to substitute for scientific knowledge i.e. truth.”
PNS is not a methodology. It is an observation of what happens to science in certain circumstances. Ravetz argues that when scientific ‘facts’ (or what are promoted by some scientist as facts) are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and (in the perception of those scientists and the policy makers they are informing) decisions urgent, the quality assurance and control of their output is extremely important, and best not left to the scientists themselves because their usual systems are not designed to cope with the kind of quality control necessary when this situation pertains.
“Yet for all of the talking about ‘quality’ in this piece, ‘quality’ is left undefined.”
If you believe there is a simple definition of quality, please post it here so we can see it. Ravetz and Funtowicz (who I also met at Lisbon, a real fun character) wrote an entire book on the issue in 1990, which I asked him to summarize as succinctly as possible.
“Claiming that us regular old ‘normal’ scientists are not fully competant to assess ‘quality’ (whatever that turns out to be) and thus require PNS politicos … well, that certainly is convenient.”
Wouldn’t you agree that the climategate scientists came to believe their own hype and lost objectivity? Or do you think they were simply perpetrating a deliberate fraud?
“we dont need PNS in order to extend the scientific peer community. We can (and have) do that already”
Please elaborate. Are you a practising scientist? Which field? Can you give examples of how you have been involved in extending the peer community when facts have been uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent?
Ravetz used to sit on committees deciding the limits to genetic research etc. Do you have any similar experience?
“Nor should we get all warm and fuzzy, thinking that the ‘extended peer community’ means us.”
Ravetz has just been instrumental in bring the skeptical blogosphere into a debating chamber with IPCC lead authors, climate modelers and E.U. policy makers at Lisbon. He’s doing his best to get us included. It’s the climategate scientists and policy makers who excluded us, not Ravetz.
“To the contrary, PNS provides a new means for the entrenched to exclude scientists from the peer community”
It does? how? Seems to me the climategate scientists had been doing that for at least 15 years already. “I’ll keep this paper out of the peer reviewed literature, even if I have to redefine what peer review means!”
“It legitimizes ad hominem attacks (under the guise of ‘expertise’ and ‘examination of values’ and the aforementioned, ill defined ‘quality’) in place of scientific response.”
People of ill will will always find some justification for their activity. If Ravetz had never written, they would have picked something else to bolster their attacks. Is the producer of a fire extinguisher responsible if someone uses it to bludgeon someone else with it?
Please could you provide a link to Hulme’s attack on Lindzen using Ravetz’ work. I can’t find it.
“We need better science, not politics masquerading as science. We need science that can admit when it does not know, and accept the implications of that”
Agreed.
“We need politics that can admit that science cannot supply all the facts we might want, and that accepts the implications of that.”
Agreed
“We dont need politics that plays on the lack of scientific knowledge, using ‘uncertainty’ as a substitute for scientific knowledge, while claiming the mantle of science.”
Ravetz doesn’t claim to be a scientist. This goes back to your perception that PNS claims to be a new and better kind of science. It doesn’t and it isn’t. PNS is not a methodology, it is a situation where science can go badly wrong. What Ravetz and practitioners such as van der Sluijs are calling for are better defined procedures and standards for handling uncertain scientific outputs in highly charged situations. They are opening up the can of worms for all to see. This is a good thing in my view, and runs completely contrary to the late Stephen Schneiders injunction to “make little mention of any doubts we may have”.
Thanks for participating, and please come back with replies to my questions and my specific points.
Tallbloke,
I think what everyone is finding objectionable is the term “post normal science”. It sounds too close to science fiction and the rest of science is normal.
Too much of climate science was enclosed in mystery of terms alien so that confusion is normal science to protect a bad theory. Plausible explanation with alien terms that people have no time to look into to figure out what climate science was up to.
I was looking into climate science to see if they were following the same path of science I was and how far advanced it could have been. But I had to totally understand the terms and methods being used first as terms like oscillations could have a variety of cogitations.
Using mathematical terms on a planet slowing fails to take into account those changes, so the mathematical formulas will always be incorrect.
Hi Joe,
Yes, it sounds to close too ‘post-modern’ which gets plenty of people’s hackles up. Ravetz would probably agree it’s a bad title in retrospect. I suppose at the time he coined it, post-mordernism was a popular current in philosophy and he felt that to get his work noticed, he had to give it a provocative catchy title.
Your second point is about the specialist language which tends to develop in fields of science. When it gets so bad outsiders actually can’t follow what is being said at all, it is known as linguistic closure. In some ways having specialist terms such as acronyms can help speed up communication within the speciality, but when it is used to deliberately keep outsiders outside, it’s a bad thing I think. In scientific papers, the acronym’s are defined bytheir long name first time, then you have to remember or constantly refer back. Apart from the acronyms, there are plenty of other specialist words we have to learn. Science isn’t easy!
Hello TB,
No worries on the long moderation time. Worth the wait.
“Having talked with Ravetz extensively by email and now in person, my personal judgement is that his ethics and morals are just fine. He’s an honest injun.”
I apologize for not communicating this correctly, but I was not questioning Ravetz’s ethics, but yours. And at that not in any blanket sense. I take you to be of the ‘honest injun’ variety, even if where I live the use of such terms often lands one in a racial sensitivity seminar :). Specifically, I was questioning the ethical consistency of posting PNS without identifying it as such.
“Well, it’s the only philosophy I’ve come across that argues for the legitimacy of bringing leaked documents to the policy making table. If you know of another, tell us where we can find it.”
Two points: 1) “to the policy making table” adequately demonstrates the field on which PNS operates. It is politics, not science. 2) There are many political philosophies which make use of leaks. I dont think Julian Assange is any sort of scientist :).
“I don’t see Ravetz analysis of PNS as anti-science, more that it tries to correct science back onto the path of rationality when it gets out of whack.”
Look harder. Get definitions of terms like ‘quality’. Also look at ‘knowledge’ and ‘facts’ and ‘extended facts’ and ‘expertise’ and ‘uncertainty’ and ‘values’. Get the meanings that PNS assigns to those terms, and examine how and for what those those concepts are used.
As an exercise in comparative philosophy, perform the same exercise with ‘Creation Science’ and also with what we used to call just ‘science’ before hangers-on made the addition of ‘normal’ a necessity.
“PNS is not a methodology.”
Yes it is. See below.
“It is an observation of what happens to science in certain circumstances.”
It is far more than that. PNS is a philosophy. An observation is not a philosophy. A philosophy is a method of interpreting and/or acting on an observation.
“Ravetz argues that when scientific ‘facts’ (or what are promoted by some scientist as facts) are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and (in the perception of those scientists and the policy makers they are informing) decisions urgent, the quality assurance and control of their output is extremely important, and best not left to the scientists themselves because their usual systems are not designed to cope with the kind of quality control necessary when this situation pertains.”
PNS is broader than that. PNS does not only assert that ‘quality assurance and control’ of science not be left to scientists, is asserts that ‘quality assurance and control’ of science not be left to science.
*’quality assurance and control’ sneer quoted because the PNS definitions of this term is not the common scientific usage.
“If you believe there is a simple definition of quality, please post it here so we can see it.”
My deifition of ‘quality’ is absolutely irrelevant to this discussion. The PNS philosophy is what we are talking about, and it is therefore the PNS definition of that term that is germain. If you dont know the definitions that PNS assigns to the terms it uses to describe itself, then you cannot know what PNS is.
Conversely, if you do not know that what you are reading was generated by PNS, then you do not know that you should be using the PNS definitions to interpret what you are reading. This is why you should not be hiding the source. It is not only dishonest, it renders the reader incompetant to understand the authors intent.
“Ravetz and Funtowicz (who I also met at Lisbon, a real fun character) wrote an entire book on the issue in 1990, which I asked him to summarize as succinctly as possible.”
Perhaps you should ask again, and have them to leave something of the definition in this time 🙂
“Wouldn’t you agree that the climategate scientists came to believe their own hype and lost objectivity? Or do you think they were simply perpetrating a deliberate fraud?”
I believe a great many things about the Climategate scientists, and none of those things are the least bit flattering. Runs the gamut from unknowingly incompetant thru deliberately criminal. That is neither hre nor there, as PNS is neither necessary nor adequate to deal with any of that.
“Please elaborate. Are you a practising scientist? Which field? Can you give examples of how you have been involved in extending the peer community when facts have been uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent?”
I have hesitated to answer that, because it treads close to ad hom and ad verc. I dont like to support that sort of thing, even when the answer is affirmative. One of my complaints agianst PNS, in fact, is that it suborns such nonsense.
That said, I am a practising scientist, in the field of environmental monitoring and modeling. I have seen my own work misrepresented in the policy arena, and have had occasion deal with that. I do not belive that this gives my scientific claims any more validity, and we dont need to use me as an example. The work that people like you and McIntyre and Mosher and McKitrick and many others have done demonstrates that the current philosophic framework of science is capable of dealing with poor or politicized science. The current problem is not the philosophy, it is the practices that do not adhere to the philosophy. If the problem is bad practice of a philosophy, the solution is institutional controls to encourage good practices. Changing philosophy does not accomplish that, for either the old philosophy, or the new one.
“Ravetz used to sit on committees deciding the limits to genetic research etc. Do you have any similar experience?”
I do not believe that is something you should consider. Evaluate PNS on its own merits.
“Ravetz has just been instrumental in bring the skeptical blogosphere into a debating chamber with IPCC lead authors, climate modelers and E.U. policy makers at Lisbon. He’s doing his best to get us included. It’s the climategate scientists and policy makers who excluded us, not Ravetz.”
Jerry’s personal motives and actions are a different subject. Examine PNS on its own merits. What he has done is not necessarily the sum total of what PNS would engender if widely practiced.
“It does? how?”
See Hulme, 2007.
“Seems to me the climategate scientists had been doing that for at least 15 years already. “I’ll keep this paper out of the peer reviewed literature, even if I have to redefine what peer review means!””
Do not blame the philosophy for the negative effects of people flouting that philosophy. The Climategate sort of behaviour is clearly against any interpretation of the scientific method. It is awful behaviour, but not the least bit surprising coming from someone who famously said “Why should I give you my data, when you mean to use it find something wrong with my work.” We do not need to replace science with PNS. We need to replace Phil Jones with a scientist. We certainly do not need to have asshats like Phil Jones practising PNS.
“People of ill will will always find some justification for their activity. If Ravetz had never written, they would have picked something else to bolster their attacks. Is the producer of a fire extinguisher responsible if someone uses it to bludgeon someone else with it?”
Your analogy is poor in my opinion. Examine PNS. Look into these concepts with names like ‘quality’ and ‘expertise’ and see how they are permitted to function. Contrast that with what science supports, and what you consider to be violations of science.
“Please could you provide a link to Hulme’s attack on Lindzen using Ravetz’ work. I can’t find it.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/mar/14/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
“Ravetz doesn’t claim to be a scientist. This goes back to your perception that PNS claims to be a new and better kind of science. It doesn’t and it isn’t.”
Well, I concur that it isnt, but ya cant say it doesnt claim to be, given the title. Let alone the areas in which it operates.
“PNS is not a methodology, it is a situation where science can go badly wrong.”
No. PNS is the proposed response to the situation. The situation is not PNS, the situation is BS. BS can be dealt with without PNS.
“What Ravetz and practitioners such as van der Sluijs are calling for are better defined procedures and standards for handling uncertain scientific outputs in highly charged situations.”
Hint: procedures = methods. A collection of methods for handling something is a methodology. PNS is a methodology.
“They are opening up the can of worms for all to see. This is a good thing in my view, and runs completely contrary to the late Stephen Schneiders injunction to “make little mention of any doubts we may have”.”
Oh, my dear Tallbloke. Before you invoke Schneider as an example of someone who would be countered by PNS, perhaps you should investigate who Schneider was, and what his relationship to PNS was.
You can start here:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Policy/Policy.html#PostNormalScience
In the age of the internet, dead men do tell tales 🙂
“Thanks for participating, and please come back with replies to my questions and my specific points.”
I enjoy it. Good discussion. Thank you.
JJ
Now, tallbloke doesn’t use too much ad hominim – except that one time…and that other time…but those are going to fall off of his record pretty soon.
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