Tallbloke: Ravetz, PNS and the Climate debate

tallbloke says: February 25, 2011 at 12:27 am David says: February 24, 2011 at 10:37 pm “If it may be urgent, then more resources must be put into normal science,” More resources *were* put into normal science. But because at the time the ‘best science’ (heh!) said it was a problem with the atmosphere the […]

Jerome Ravetz: PNS, Truth and Science

I ‘d like to thank Jerome Ravetz for providing me with a new essay on his philosophy of ‘Post Normal Science’. Jerry is a veteran of the history and philosophy of science, and brings his wisdom to an arena riven with conflicting views and controversial evidential interpretations. In an effort to reduce the heat in […]

Jerome Ravetz: Quality in science for policy

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, […]

Lunch with Lindzen

An unexpected pleasure came my way today when I bumped into Dick Lindzen and his wife as they were on their way to prayer at Oxford’s Synagogue. At the time I was waiting for Jerry Ravetz outside Woucester College, and after he picked me up, we happened to pass Dick and Nadine further along the […]

Happy Birthday: Nicolaus Copernicus is 540 today

Happy Birthday to Nicolaus Copernicus, born this day 540 years ago. Though his work on orbits still left us with epicycles (Kepler would succeed in eliminating them with his elliptical orbits replacing Copernicus’ circular ones) he nonetheless moved the science of astronomy and cosmology forward by his placement of the Sun at the centre of […]

Consensus? What Consensus? The Lie Comes Undone

Sylvia Tognetti said: Science can be wrong, but given what is known and accepted by “all but cranks”, it would require extraordinary evidence to overturn that consensus… However, Curry, like Joe Bast, apparently rejects a consensus approach without saying how policy could otherwise be informed by what science can offer. Eli Rabbett (Josh Halpern) said: “choosing […]

Sylvia Tognetti: Cranking up the volume far post-normal

Following a long period of reflection, or brooding, or something, Post-Normal-Times blogger and environment consultant Sylvia Tognetti has a new year’s resolution to go on the offensive against Post-Normal-Science originator and veteran philosopher of science Jerry Ravetz. Sylvia seems to have come to a judgement that Jerry has abandoned the principles of PNS and ‘gone over […]

Seminars and Interview: A busy week behind the scenes

It has been an interesting week. On Tuesday I met with Jerry Ravetz, who came up to the History and Philosophy of Science dept. at Leeds on Tuesday to deliver two seminars. The first was on Thomas Kuhn’s seminal book ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’. At the start of the seminar, he passed around a […]

Peter Taylor: Hidden History – Deep Mystery

Peter Taylor says: February 25, 2011 at 3:48 pm I am late to this debate – which is my favourite territory, but for which I get little time ‘cos I am out there doing policy (and some science). Its all very familiar – I spent some time at Oxford in the ’70s doing some research […]

Lisbon Reflections: A Tale of Tribes

CartoonsbyJosh.com   I still haven’t fully formed my thoughts about Lisbon in the wider context yet, but thought I ought to express something about my current take on things. On Judy Curry’s blog earlier this evening I came across a comment on a Lisbon thread by Werner Krauss. Werner attended with Hans von Storch, who […]