LISIS
image description

Séminaire Exceptionnel de Silvio Funtowicz

La plupart d’entre vous connaissent le concept de « science post-normale » proposé en 1993 par Ravetz et Funtowicz pour prendre en compte le fait que, dans un monde incertain, il faut bien souvent prendre des décisions dures sur des faits mous. Ce concept s’inscrit dans une réflexion d’ensemble qui, au cour des années 1990, remet en cause le mythe d’une science qui dit la vérité au politique (« science speaks truth to power », « les experts ont toujours raison ») et vise à penser autrement les relations entre science, expertise et politique.

A l’occasion d’un passage à Paris, Silvio Funtowicz donnera une conférence au LISIS qui permettra de revenir sur les origines de ce concept et sur ses influences dans le monde de la recherche et sur les relations entre science, expertise et politique.

Merci de faire circuler cette annonce dans vos réseaux!

 

Science and policy making in an age of uncertainty
The emergence and current relevance of Post Normal Science

Silvio FUNTOWICZ 
Centre for the Study of the Sciences & the Humanities (SVT)
Universitetet i Bergen (UiB)
Twitter: @SFuntowicz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Funtowicz

LISIS Seminar

Paris, 24 April 2019
14h00-16h00

Location
Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, bâtiment Camus au 2 allée Jean Renoir – 93160 Noisy-le-Grand
Access
http://umr-lisis.fr/lisis/contact/

Abstract

It has been a rapid transformation since the mainstream narrative about the science-technology-governance nexus started to be questioned during the early 1960s. In the pre-WWII period, philosophers of different persuasions invoked Science as the symbol of their vision, whether of communism (J.D. Bernal), conservatism (M. Polanyi), criticism (K. Popper), or American democracy (R.K. Merton).
But then, as Big Science was established (V. Bush), the image of Science as the universal beneficial truth-machine was coming under challenge.  First through nuclear weapons then the military-industrial complex, and the emergence of a technoscientific elite (D. Eisenhower). Finally, the critique of science progress (T. Kuhn), and the pathologies of technological progress, with its environmental ‘unintended consequences’ (R. Carson), reinforced by disasters in complex systems (Ch. Perrow), no longer obviously ‘clean, safe and cheap’.
Post Normal Science (PNS) arose out of the collaboration with Jerry Ravetz on the management of uncertainty in technological risks, extending the analysis on science and trans-science (A. Weinberg) to the quantification of risks in complex technoscientific systems were uncertainty is irreducible, and then to the growing conflicts in the legitimation system of the Modern state.
For resolving such issues there needs to be an extension of the peer community who are responsible for quality control and governance in science and technology. It can no longer be restricted to scientific experts or even accredited professionals, but must include a multiplicity of actors, including what are now called grassroots ‘citizen scientists’. These ‘extended peers’ may use as evidence ‘extended-facts’, obtained through sources and methods other than the traditional peer-reviewed literature authored by credentialed experts. PNS has legitimised the use of facts that are, in many occasions, based on experiential, practical or ancestral knowledge.
In this talk, after presenting the roots, the emergence and the main features of PNS, I will reflect on its journey and its influence on regulatory science and the production of knowledge for policy-making.

 

Silvio O. Funtowicz is a philosopher of science active in the field of science and technology studies. He created the NUSAP, notational system for characterising uncertainty and quality in quantitative expressions, and together with Jerome R. Ravetz he introduced the concept of post-normal science. He is presently professor at the University of Bergen (Norway) at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (SVT).

Se rendre au LISIS

Les bureaux du LISIS se trouvent à l’Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, bâtiment Camus au 2 allée Jean Renoir – 93160 Noisy-le-Grand.

En RER

  • 25 min depuis Châtelet-Les-Halles en direction de Marne-la-Vallée-Chessy. Descendre en queue de train.
  • 25 min depuis Marne-la-Vallée-Chessy en direction de Cergy-Poissy-St Germain en Laye. Descendre en tête de train.

Le bâtiment se trouve à la sortie du RER.