Uncertain Facts, Risks and Decisions: Science for Policy Today
Since 1992, the year of the English publication of Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity by Ulrich Beck (originally published in German in 1986), the theme of risk has become increasingly popular in the social sciences. Following the work of Beck and Charles Perrow (Normal Accidents, 1984), who demonstrated how accidents are almost inevitable in highly complex systems, this discussion reflects on how risks today take interdependent and global forms, generating scenarios that are difficult to predict. The approach of Post-Normal Science, developed by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz in the early 1990s, argues that when “facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes high and decisions are urgent,” traditional science is insufficient to guide public action. It then becomes necessary to involve an extended peer community, capable of integrating expert knowledge with insights derived from direct experience. Significant examples of this transformation can be seen in popular epidemiology and citizen science. These show how local communities can produce crucial knowledge for identifying and managing environmental and health risks arising, for example, from accidents or malfunctions in certain types of industrial production or energy infrastructures. In the post-normal era, the quality of knowledge depends as much on the accuracy of data as on the legitimacy and credibility of the processes that generate it.
Speakers:
Bruna De Marchi holds degrees in Political Science and Sociology from Bologna and the United States. She has long coordinated the Mass Emergencies Programme at the International Sociology Institute of Gorizia and, in the early 1990s, served as a national expert seconded to the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission at Ispra (Varese). She is currently affiliated with the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Bergen (Norway) and has taught at several universities both in Italy and abroad. Her research focuses on disasters, environmental and health risks, governance, and citizen science.
Silvio Funtowicz has held teaching positions in mathematics, logic, and research methodology in Argentina. In the 1980s, he was a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, and until 2001 he served as a Scientific Officer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission at Ispra (Varese). He is currently affiliated with the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Bergen (Norway), where he has also been an Associate Professor. Together with Jerome Ravetz, he developed the concept of Post-Normal Science (PNS) and the NUSAP system during the 1980s, providing tools to manage uncertainty and evaluate the quality of scientific knowledge for policy.
Introduction:
Giuseppe Tipaldo (Lecturer in Sociology of Cultural and Communication Processes, Politecnico di Torino)