Post-Normal Science: "When values are disputing at high stakes with uncertain facts"

Amen to that! 

Nay, dear reader, be not alarmed! I am not a zealot who is starting a new religion called 'Post-normalism' (that has probably already been done by another person, anyhow!)! Neither am I trying to dissuade you from doing 'Normal' Science, or dissuade you to not refrain from doing that, or doing anything else or not doing anything else... 

* sigh *

What DO I want with this post, then? 

Well, that is quite simple: I want to share with the world a small doodle (draft, sketch, scribble or scrabble if you will) that made my conceptual understanding of the empirical world so much more ... eh ... understandable (I am running out of difficult words here)! 

Anyway, first let me explain some context: there once was, in a country far far away (let's say the States) a pair of brilliant scientists called Funtowicz and Ravetz who wrote a really smart - but controversial - paper on science and its relevancy to society.

They basically claimed that there are different kinds or 'flavours' of science, which can basically differ from 'traditional science' through 'applied science' and 'professional consultancy' all the way up to 'post-normal science'. It is this latter flavour that might actually make science edible for society, if we stick to the flavour-metaphor.

Sounds cool, no? But what is it, this post-normal sciency stuff? Does it involve incomprehensible equations, lab-rat-experiments or years of intensive immersion in a local African community? Can we really eat it? 

Nay, say Functowicz and Ravetz, it is just the case that 'normal' science does not help us when: 

"Facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high" *

Yay, says I, because this sounds like material I can visualize. Hence, I did, and the result is this doodle: 

Post-normal science is all about situations when "facts are uncertain, values in dispute [and] stakes high".

Running the risk of stating the obvious:

• The stakes (the wooden poles inserted in the 'dispute area') are high,
• The values (those little flame-shaped guys in the centre of the dispute area showing their teeth) are... well, in dispute, 
• The facts (the half-hidden dots representing data-facts that are uncertain about what to do)

Of course, Functowicz and Ravetz had their own schematic representation of matters as well, which is probably more 'academic' in style and lay-out but that just doesn't help me when I try to grasp this idea. 

Maybe besides the point but important to add, Functowicz and Ravetz were also talking about 'urgent decisions' being important factors in post-normal science. But since I could not incorporate urgency in my doodle, I concluded that this therefore must have been of secondary importance. After all, if our values are in dispute and stakes are high, that kind of automatically means we would want to reach decisions urgently, right? 

But DO feel free to argue that (and other) points!!!!

*As a matter of fact, this quote returns in many of the articles Functowicz and Ravetz have written on the topic, but one of the earliest and most readable is: Funtowicz, S. and Ravets, J. (1993) Science for the post-normal age. Futures 25. 739-755