Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung 314d ago

Silvio Funtowicz on Science, Uncertainty, and Governance in Turbulent Times On the Speaker The talk featured Prof. Silvio Funtowicz, a philosopher and historian of science best known for co-developing the concept of Post-Normal Science (PNS). With a career spanning Latin America, the UK, and continental Europe, Funtowicz has consistently operated at the intersection of scientific practice and democratic governance. From early work in logic and methodology in Buenos Aires to policy-relevant research at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, his career reflects a long-standing concern with how science functions when society faces high-stakes decisions and deep uncertainties. Now affiliated with the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Bergen, and co-director of the European Centre for Governance in Complexity (ECGC), Funtowicz continues to challenge technocratic models of expertise and champion inclusive, pluralistic approaches to knowledge. Abstract The effort to provide advice for the Covid-19 has illustrated that there is no privileged relevant expertise or techno-scientific silver bullet; it taught us that Science does not speak with one and undisputed voice. It also showed that the range of disciplines consulted was mostly limited to a biomedical elite, along with modelers and economists, revealing that the framing of policy issues is still anchored on the Modern State model of legitimation in which complexity is ignored, and facts are treated as independent of values and of what is at stake. Post-Normal Science (PNS) emerged as a problem-solving strategy that is appropriate when facts are uncertain, values are in conflict, stakes high and decisions urgent. Under those conditions the ideal of Truth gives way to Quality. In PNS, quality is understood as fitness for purpose. It is operationalized through a dialogue between experts and the extended peer communities. We have still to learn that knowledge does not speak only in the language of science. It requires instead a transdisciplinary effort where a plurality of styles of 'knowing-how' complement the disciplined 'knowing-that' from textbooks. It is our role to participate and support the transition to a new understanding of useful knowledges. The Covid pandemic is part of several challenges facing humanity today, such as climate change, the collapse of ecosystems, the loss of biodiversity and, in general, sustainability transitions. These all share the PNS conditions in the context of persistent extreme inequalities, weak democratic institutions, growing authoritarian temptations, and fantasies of techno-scientific silver bullets. To give effective support to decision-making and political action, Science must not continue to pursue the unattainable goals of precise prediction and total control but should rather participate in a collective effort for the creation of just, responsible and anticipatory knowledge.