View source for Post-normal science

{{Short description|Approach to the use of science on urgent issues involving uncertainty in facts and moral values}}
[[File:Post-normal Science diagram.png|thumb|upright=1.15|Post-normal science diagram]]
[[File:Ravetz-Funtowicz-1988.jpg|thumb|upright|Jerome Ravetz and Silvio Funtowicz, circa 1988, at Sheffield]]

'''Post-normal science''' ('''PNS''') was developed in the 1990s by [[Biography:Silvio Funtowicz|Silvio Funtowicz]] and Jerome R. Ravetz.<ref name="PNS1">Funtowicz, S. O. and Ravetz, J. R., 1991. "A New Scientific Methodology for Global Environmental Issues", in Costanza, R. (ed.), Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability: 137–152. New York: Columbia University Press.</ref><ref name="PNS2">Funtowicz, S. O. and Ravetz, J. R., 1992. "Three types of risk assessment and the emergence of postnormal science", in Krimsky, S. and Golding, D. (eds.), Social theories of risk: 251–273. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood.</ref><ref name="PNS3">{{cite journal |last1=Funtowicz |first1=Silvio O. |last2=Ravetz |first2=Jerome R. |title=Science for the post-normal age |journal=Futures |date=September 1993 |volume=25 |issue=7 |pages=739–755 |doi=10.1016/0016-3287(93)90022-L |s2cid=204321566 }}</ref> It is a problem-solving strategy appropriate when "facts [are] uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent", conditions often present in policy-relevant research. In those situations, PNS recommends suspending temporarily the  traditional scientific ideal of truth, concentrating on quality as assessed by internal and extended peer communities.<ref name="PNS1" /><ref name="MartinezA">EJOLT. (2023). EJAtlas | Mapping Environmental Justice. Environmental Justice Atlas. https://ejatlas.org/</ref>

PNS can be considered as complementing the styles of analysis based on risk and cost-benefit analysis prevailing at that time and integrating concepts of a new critical science developed in previous works by the same authors.<ref name="UQSP">Funtowicz, S. and Ravetz, J., 1990. Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.{{page needed|date=December 2022}}</ref><ref name="SK_1971">Ravetz, J. R., 1971. Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems. Oxford University Press.{{page needed|date=December 2022}}</ref> 
 
PNS is not a new scientific method following [[Biography:Aristotle|Aristotle]] and [[Biography:Francis Bacon|Bacon]], a new paradigm in the Kuhnian sense, or an attempt to reach a new ‘normal’. It is instead, a set of insights to guide actionable and robust knowledge production for policy decision making and action in challenges like pandemics, ecosystems collapse, [[Biology:Biodiversity loss|biodiversity loss]] and, in general, sustainability transitions.<ref name="Companion">Funtowicz, S. and Ravetz, J., "Post-normal science", in ''Companion to Environmental Studies'', Edited ByNoel Castree, Mike Hulme, James D. Proctor, 2018, Routledge.</ref><ref name="Strand">Strand, R., "Post-Normal Science", in ''Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics'', Edited By Clive L. Spash, 2017, Routledge.</ref>

==Context==
According to its proponents<ref name="PNS3" /> [[Biography:Silvio Funtowicz|Silvio Funtowicz]] and Jerome R. Ravetz, the name "post-normal science" echoes the seminal work on modern science by [[Biography:Thomas Kuhn|Thomas Kuhn]].<ref name="Kuhn" >T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, 1962.{{page needed|date=December 2022}}</ref> For Carrozza<ref name="Carrozza">{{cite journal |last1=Carrozza |first1=Chiara |title=Democratizing Expertise and Environmental Governance: Different Approaches to the Politics of Science and their Relevance for Policy Analysis |journal=Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning |date=January 2015 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=108–126 |doi=10.1080/1523908X.2014.914894 |s2cid=144368996 }}</ref> PNS can be "framed in terms of a call for the ‘democratization of expertise’", and as a "reaction against long-term trends of ‘scientization’ of politics—the tendency towards assigning to experts a critical role in policymaking while marginalizing laypeople". For Mike Hulme (2007), writing on ''{{wipe|The Guardian}}'', climate change seems to fall into the category of issues which are best dealt with in the context of PNS and notes that “Disputes in post-normal science focus as often on the process of science - who gets funded, who evaluates quality, who has the ear of policy - as on the facts of science”.<ref>{{cite web
|last=Hulme
|first=Mike
|url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/mar/14/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
|title=The appliance of science
|work={{wipe|The Guardian}}
|date=14 March 2007
}}</ref> 

From the ecological perspective post-normal science can be situated in the context of 'crisis disciplines' – a term coined by the conservation biologist [[Biography:Michael E. Soulé|Michael E. Soulé]] to indicate approaches addressing fears, emerging in the seventies, that the world was on the verge of [[Biology:Ecological collapse|ecological collapse]]. In this respect Michael Egan<ref name="Egan">{{cite journal |last1=Egan |first1=Michael |title=Survival Science: Crisis Disciplines and the Shock of the Environment in the 1970s1: Survival science |journal=Centaurus |date=February 2017 |volume=59 |issue=1–2 |pages=26–39 |doi=10.1111/1600-0498.12149 |doi-access=free }}</ref> defines PNS as a 'survival science'. More recently PNS has been defined as a movement of ‘informed critical resistance, reform and the making of futures’.<ref name="PNS2019Opening">J. R. Ravetz, "Post-Normal Science Symposium: Address by Jerome Ravetz Reflections on ‘informed critical resistance, reform and the making of futures,’" University of Oxford, Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.insis.ox.ac.uk/article/post-normal-science-symposium-address-jerome-ravetz</ref>

Moving from PNS [[Biography:Ziauddin Sardar|Ziauddin Sardar]] developed the concept of Postnormal Times (PNT). Sardar was the editor of [https://www.journals.elsevier.com/futures FUTURES] when it published the article ‘Science for the post-normal age’<ref name="PNS3" /> presently the most cited paper of the journal. A recent review of academic literature conducted on the Web of Science and encompassing the topics of Futures studies, Foresight, Forecasting and Anticipation Practice<ref name="Gauthier" /> identifies the same paper as "the all-time publication that received the highest number of citations".

==Content==
"At birth Post-normal science was conceived as an inclusive set of robust insights more than as an exclusive fully structured theory or field of practice".<ref name="Personal">Funtowicz, S., 2016, personal correspondence.</ref> Some of the ideas underpinning PNS can already be found in a work published in 1983 and entitled "Three types of risk assessment: a methodological analysis" <ref name="ThreeTypes_1983">Funtowicz, S. O. and Ravetz, J. R. (1985), Three types of risk assessment: a methodological analysis, in C. Whipple and V. T. Covello (Eds), Risk Analysis in the Private Sector, pp 217-232 (Plenum, New York).</ref> This and subsequent works <ref name="PNS1" /><ref name="PNS2" /><ref name="PNS3" /><ref name="UQSP" /> show that PNS concentrates on few aspects of the complex relation between science and policy: the communication of uncertainty, the assessment of quality, and the justification and practice of the extended peer communities.

Coming to the PNS diagram (figure above) the horizontal axis represents ‘Systems Uncertainties’ and the vertical one ‘Decision Stakes’. The three quadrants identify Applied Science, Professional Consultancy, and Post-Normal Science. Different standards of quality and styles of analysis are appropriate to different regions in the diagram, i.e. post-normal science does not claim relevance and cogency on all of science's application but only on those defined by the PNS's mantram with a fourfold challenge: ‘facts uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent’. For applied research science's own peer quality control system will suffice (or so was assumed at the moment PNS was formulated in the early nineties), while professional consultancy was considered appropriate for these settings which cannot be ‘peer-reviewed’, and where the skills and the tacit knowledge of a practitioner are needed at the forefront, e.g. in a surgery room, or in a house on fire. Here a surgeon or a firefighter takes a difficult technical decision based on her or his training and appreciation of the situation (the Greek concept of ‘[[Unsolved:Metis (mythology)|Metis]]’ as discussed by J. C. Scott.<ref name="Scott">Scott, J. C. (1999). Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (0 edition). Yale University Press.</ref>)

==Complexity==  
There are important linkages between PNS and complexity science,<ref name="Complexity">Rees, M., 2017, Black holes are simpler than forests and science has its limits, [https://aeon.co/amp/ideas/black-holes-are-simpler-than-forests-and-science-has-its-limits AEON, 1 December].</ref> e.g. system ecology (C. S. Holling) and hierarchy theory ([[Biography:Arthur Koestler|Arthur Koestler]]). In PNS, complexity is respected through its recognition of a multiplicity of legitimate perspectives on any issue; this is close to the meaning espoused by [[Biography:Robert Rosen (theoretical biologist)|Robert Rosen (theoretical biologist)]].<ref name="Rosen_Complexity">ROSEN, ROBERT. 1977. ‘Complexity as a System Property†’. International Journal of General Systems 3 (4): 227–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/03081077708934768.</ref> Reflexivity is realised through the extension of accepted ‘facts’ beyond the supposedly objective productions of traditional research. Also, the new participants in the process are not treated as passive learners at the feet of the experts, being coercively convinced through scientific demonstration. Rather, they will form an ‘extended peer community’, sharing the work of quality assurance of the scientific inputs to the process, and arriving at a resolution of issues through debate and dialogue.<ref name="Poetry_Thermod">{{cite journal |last1=Funtowicz |first1=Silvio O |last2=Ravetz |first2=Jerome R |title=The poetry of thermodynamics |journal=Futures |date=November 1997 |volume=29 |issue=9 |pages=791–810 |doi=10.1016/S0016-3287(97)00059-1 }}</ref> The necessity to embrace complexity in a post-normal perspective to understand and face zoonoses is argumented by David Waltner-Toews.<ref name="DWT">{{cite journal |last1=Waltner-Toews |first1=David |title=Zoonoses, One Health and complexity: wicked problems and constructive conflict |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |date=19 July 2017 |volume=372 |issue=1725 |pages=20160171 |doi=10.1098/rstb.2016.0171 |pmid=28584179 |pmc=5468696 }}</ref>

==Extended peer community==
{{Main|Extended peer community}}
In PNS extended peer communities are spaces where perspectives, values, styles of knowing and power differentials are expressed in a context of inequalities and conflict. Resolutions, compromises and knowledge co-production are contingent and not necessarily achievable.<ref name="PNS1" /><ref name="MartinezA"/><ref name="MartinezA2">Alier, J. M. (2020). A global environmental justice movement: Mapping ecological distribution conflicts. Disjuntiva. Crítica de Les Ciències Socials, 1(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.14198/DISJUNTIVA2020.1.2.6</ref><ref name="Croix">Croix, J. F. de la. (2023). Collaboration. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.174</ref>

==Applications==
Beside its dominating influence in the literature on 'futures',<ref name="Gauthier">Thomas Gauthier, Sylvaine Mercuri Chapuis, 2018, An Investigation of Futures Studies Scholarly Literature, In: Poli R. (eds) Handbook of Anticipation. Springer, Cham</ref> PNS is considered to have influenced the ecological ‘conservation versus preservation debate’, especially via its reading by American pragmatist [https://www.iac.gatech.edu/people/faculty/norton Bryan G. Norton]. According to Jozef Keulartz <ref name="Keulartz">{{cite book |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-92597-4_12 |chapter=Does Deliberation Promote Ecological Citizenship? The Convergence Hypothesis and the Reality of Polarization |title=A Sustainable Philosophy—The Work of Bryan Norton |series=The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics |year=2018 |last1=Keulartz |first1=Jozef |volume=26 |pages=189–212 |isbn=978-3-319-92596-7 }}</ref> the PNS concept of "extended peer community" influenced how Norton's developed his 'convergence hypothesis'. The hypothesis posits that ecologists of different orientation will converge once they start thinking 'as a mountain', or as a planet. For Norton this will be achieved via deliberative democracy, which will pragmatically overcome the black and white divide between conservationists and preservationists. More recently it has been argued that conservation science, embedded as it is in a multi-layered governance structures of policy-makers, practitioners, and stakeholders, is itself an 'extended peer community', and as a result conservation has always been ‘post-normal’.<ref name="Rose_Conservation">{{cite journal |last1=Rose |first1=David Christian |title=Avoiding a Post-truth World: Embracing Post-normal Conservation |journal=Conservation and Society |date=2018 |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=518–524 |id={{Gale|A556008584}} {{ProQuest|2113043321}} |jstor=26500664 |doi=10.4103/cs.cs_17_131 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Other authors attribute to PNS the role of having stimulated the take up of transdisciplinary methodological frameworks, reliant on the social constructivist perspective embedded in PNS.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Heaslip |first1=Eimear |last2=Fahy |first2=Frances |title=Developing transdisciplinary approaches to community energy transitions: An island case study |journal=Energy Research & Social Science |date=November 2018 |volume=45 |pages=153–163 |doi=10.1016/j.erss.2018.07.013 |s2cid=115526804 }}</ref><ref name="Heaslip">Strand, R. (2017). Post-Normal Science. In Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics. Routledge.</ref>

As summarized in a recent work "the ideas and concepts of post normal science bring about the emergence of new problem solving strategies in which the role of science is appreciated in its full context of the complexity and the uncertainty of natural systems and the relevance of human commitments and values."<ref name="Lister">{{cite thesis |last1=Lister |first1=Andee Rose |title=The bioaccumulation of uranium in sheep heart and kidney: the impact of contaminated traditional food sources on the Navajo Reservation |date=2018 |url=https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/5450/ }}</ref>

For Peter Gluckman (2014), chief science advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, post-normal science approaches are today appropriate for a host of problems including  "eradication of exogenous pests […], offshore oil prospecting, legalization of recreational psychotropic drugs, water quality, family violence, obesity, teenage morbidity and suicide, the ageing population, the prioritization of early-childhood education, reduction of agricultural greenhouse gases, and balancing economic growth and environmental sustainability".<ref name="Gluckman2014">{{cite journal |last1=Gluckman |first1=Peter |title=Policy: The art of science advice to government |journal=Nature |date=March 2014 |volume=507 |issue=7491 |pages=163–165 |doi=10.1038/507163a |pmid=24627919 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Recent reviews of the history and evolution of PNS, its definitions, conceptualizations,
and uses can be found in Turnpenny et al., 2010,<ref name="PNS5">{{cite journal |last1=Turnpenny |first1=John |last2=Jones |first2=Mavis |last3=Lorenzoni |first3=Irene |title=Where Now for Post-Normal Science?: A Critical Review of its Development, Definitions, and Uses |journal=Science, Technology, & Human Values |date=May 2011 |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=287–306 |doi=10.1177/0162243910385789 |s2cid=145154965 }}</ref> and in The Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics (Nature and Society).<ref name="Strand2017">Strand, R., 2017, Post normal Science, The Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics (Nature and Society) Edited by Clive L. Spash, p. 288-297.</ref> There has been recently an increased reference to post-normal science, e.g. in Nature<ref name="Gluckman2014"/><ref name="Grinnell2015">{{cite journal |last1=Grinnell |first1=Frederick |title=Rethink our approach to assessing risk |journal=Nature |date=June 2015 |volume=522 |issue=7556 |pages=257 |doi=10.1038/522257a |pmid=26085235 |bibcode=2015Natur.522..257G |s2cid=4390715 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Editorial2016">{{cite journal |title=Future present |journal=Nature |date=March 2016 |volume=531 |issue=7592 |pages=7–8 |doi=10.1038/531007b |pmid=26935658 |bibcode=2016Natur.531R...7. |s2cid=4458816 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Dietl2016">{{cite journal |last1=Dietl |first1=Gregory P. |title=Different worlds |journal=Nature |date=January 2016 |volume=529 |issue=7584 |pages=29–30 |doi=10.1038/nature16329 |pmid=26675725 |s2cid=205246974 }}</ref><ref name="Jerry2019">{{cite journal |last1=Ravetz |first1=Jerry |title=Stop the science training that demands 'don't ask' |journal=Nature |date=21 November 2019 |volume=575 |issue=7783 |pages=417 |id={{Gale|A642124287}} |doi=10.1038/d41586-019-03527-y |pmid=31745366 |bibcode=2019Natur.575..417R |s2cid=208171725 }}</ref> and related journals.<ref name="AS2019">{{cite journal |last1=Saltelli |first1=Andrea |title=A short comment on statistical versus mathematical modelling |journal=Nature Communications |date=27 August 2019 |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=3870 |doi=10.1038/s41467-019-11865-8 |pmid=31455789 |pmc=6712000 |bibcode=2019NatCo..10.3870S }}</ref><ref name="xx">{{cite journal |last1=Norström |first1=Albert V. |last2=Cvitanovic |first2=Christopher |last3=Löf |first3=Marie F. |last4=West |first4=Simon |last5=Wyborn |first5=Carina |last6=Balvanera |first6=Patricia |last7=Bednarek |first7=Angela T. |last8=Bennett |first8=Elena M. |last9=Biggs |first9=Reinette |last10=de Bremond |first10=Ariane |last11=Campbell |first11=Bruce M. |last12=Canadell |first12=Josep G. |last13=Carpenter |first13=Stephen R. |last14=Folke |first14=Carl |last15=Fulton |first15=Elizabeth A. |last16=Gaffney |first16=Owen |last17=Gelcich |first17=Stefan |last18=Jouffray |first18=Jean-Baptiste |last19=Leach |first19=Melissa |last20=Le Tissier |first20=Martin |last21=Martín-López |first21=Berta |last22=Louder |first22=Elena |last23=Loutre |first23=Marie-France |last24=Meadow |first24=Alison M. |last25=Nagendra |first25=Harini |last26=Payne |first26=Davnah |last27=Peterson |first27=Garry D. |last28=Reyers |first28=Belinda |last29=Scholes |first29=Robert |last30=Speranza |first30=Chinwe Ifejika |last31=Spierenburg |first31=Marja |last32=Stafford-Smith |first32=Mark |last33=Tengö |first33=Maria |last34=van der Hel |first34=Sandra |last35=van Putten |first35=Ingrid |last36=Österblom |first36=Henrik |title=Principles for knowledge co-production in sustainability research |journal=Nature Sustainability |date=March 2020 |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=182–190 |doi=10.1038/s41893-019-0448-2 |hdl=1874/410045 |s2cid=210833452 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

==Criticism==
A criticism of post-normal science is offered by Weingart (1997)<ref name="PNS4">{{cite journal |last1=Weingart |first1=Peter |title=From 'Finalization' to 'Mode 2': old wine in new bottles? |journal=Social Science Information |date=December 1997 |volume=36 |issue=4 |pages=591–613 |doi=10.1177/053901897036004002 |s2cid=143045529 }}</ref> for whom post-normal science does not introduce a new epistemology but retraces earlier debates linked to the so-called "finalization thesis". For Jörg Friedrichs <ref name="Critique1">{{cite journal |last1=Friedrichs |first1=Jörg |title=Peak energy and climate change: The double bind of post-normal science |journal=Futures |date=May 2011 |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=469–477 |doi=10.1016/j.futures.2010.12.004 }}</ref> – comparing the issues of climate change and peak energy – an extension of the peer community has taken place in the climate science community, transforming climate scientists into ‘stealth advocates’,<ref name="Pielke_broker">R. A. Pielke, Jr, The Honest Broker. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
</ref> while scientists working on energy security – without PNS, would still maintain their credentials of neutrality and objectivity. Another criticism is that the extended peer community's use undermines the [[Scientific method|scientific method]]'s use of empiricism and that its goal would be better addressed by providing greater science education.

==The crisis of science==
It has been argued <ref name="Crisis_About">{{cite journal |last1=Saltelli |first1=Andrea |last2=Funtowicz |first2=Silvio |title=What is science's crisis really about? |journal=Futures |date=August 2017 |volume=91 |pages=5–11 |doi=10.1016/j.futures.2017.05.010 |doi-access=free }}</ref> that post-normal science scholars have been prescient in anticipating the present crisis in science's quality control and reproducibility. A group of scholars of post-normal science orientation has published in 2016 a volume on the topic,<ref name="Benessia">Benessia, A., Funtowicz, S., Giampietro, M., Guimarães Pereira, A., Ravetz, J., Saltelli, A., Strand, R., van der Sluijs, J., 2016. The Rightful Place of Science: Science on the Verge. The Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University.</ref> discussing ''inter alia'' what this community perceive as the root causes of the present science's crisis.<ref name="Guardian">Ravetz, J., 2016, [https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2016/jun/08/how-should-we-treat-sciences-growing-pains How should we treat science's growing pains? The Guardian, 8 June 2016].</ref><ref name=Crisis_About /><ref name="Science_Battle">{{cite journal |last1=Andrea |first1=Saltelli |title=Why science's crisis should not become a political battling ground |journal=Futures |date=December 2018 |volume=104 |pages=85–90 |doi=10.1016/j.futures.2018.07.006 |s2cid=150287970 |doi-access=free |hdl=10609/93175 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ravetz |first1=Jerry |title=Stop the science training that demands 'don't ask' |journal=Nature |date=19 November 2019 |volume=575 |issue=7783 |pages=417 |doi=10.1038/d41586-019-03527-y |pmid=31745366 |bibcode=2019Natur.575..417R |s2cid=208171725 }}</ref>

==Quantitative approaches== 
Among the quantitative styles of analysis which make reference to post-normal science one can mention [[Philosophy:NUSAP|NUSAP]] for numerical information, [[Sensitivity auditing|sensitivity auditing]] for indicators and mathematical modelling, [[Quantitative storytelling]] for exploring multiple frames in a quantitative analysis, and MUSIASEM in the field of social metabolism. A work where these approaches are suggested for sustainability is in.<ref name="lenses">{{cite journal |last1=Saltelli |first1=Andrea |last2=Benini |first2=Lorenzo |last3=Funtowicz |first3=Silvio |last4=Giampietro |first4=Mario |last5=Kaiser |first5=Matthias |last6=Reinert |first6=Erik |last7=van der Sluijs |first7=Jeroen P. |title=The technique is never neutral. How methodological choices condition the generation of narratives for sustainability |journal=Environmental Science & Policy |date=April 2020 |volume=106 |pages=87–98 |doi=10.1016/j.envsci.2020.01.008 |s2cid=212711505 |doi-access=free |hdl=1956/21941 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

==Mathematical modelling==
In relation to mathematical modelling post-normal science suggests a participatory approach, whereby ‘models to predict and control the future’ are replaced by ‘models to map our ignorance about the future’, in the process exploring and revealing the metaphors embedded in the model.<ref name="Metaphor">{{cite book |last1=Ravetz |first1=Jerry |chapter=Models as metaphors |pages=62–77 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rZWVpU4yNQ4C&pg=PA62 |editor1-last=Kasemir |editor1-first=Bernd |editor2-last=Jäger |editor2-first=Jill |editor3-last=Jaeger |editor3-first=Carlo C. |editor4-last=Gardner |editor4-first=Matthew T. |title=Public Participation in Sustainability Science: A Handbook |date=2003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-52144-4 }}</ref> PNS is also known for its definition of garbage in, garbage out (GIGO): in modelling GIGO occurs when the uncertainties in the inputs must be suppressed, lest the outputs become completely indeterminate.<ref name="OldPNSpaper">{{cite magazine |last1=Funtowicz |first1=Silvio |last2=Ravetz |first2=Jerry |date=October 1990 |title=Post-normal science: A new science for new times |magazine=Scientific European |pages=20–22 }}</ref> In a comment published in Nature 22 scholars take COVID-19 as the occasion for suggesting five ways to make models serve society better. The piece notes "how the operation of science changes when questions of urgency, stakes, values and uncertainty collide — in the ‘post-normal’ regime".<ref name="Comment">{{cite journal |last1=Saltelli |first1=Andrea |last2=Bammer |first2=Gabriele |last3=Bruno |first3=Isabelle |last4=Charters |first4=Erica |last5=Di Fiore |first5=Monica |last6=Didier |first6=Emmanuel |last7=Nelson Espeland |first7=Wendy |last8=Kay |first8=John |last9=Lo Piano |first9=Samuele |last10=Mayo |first10=Deborah |last11=Pielke Jr |first11=Roger |last12=Portaluri |first12=Tommaso |last13=Porter |first13=Theodore M. |last14=Puy |first14=Arnald |last15=Rafols |first15=Ismael |last16=Ravetz |first16=Jerome R. |last17=Reinert |first17=Erik |last18=Sarewitz |first18=Daniel |last19=Stark |first19=Philip B. |last20=Stirling |first20=Andrew |last21=van der Sluijs |first21=Jeroen |last22=Vineis |first22=Paolo |title=Five ways to ensure that models serve society: a manifesto |journal=Nature |date=June 2020 |volume=582 |issue=7813 |pages=482–484 |doi=10.1038/d41586-020-01812-9 |pmid=32581374 |bibcode=2020Natur.582..482S |hdl=1885/219031 |s2cid=219988296 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

==COVID-19== 
On 25 March 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of scholars of post-normal orientation published on the blog section of the STEPS Centre (for Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) at the [[Organization:University of Sussex|University of Sussex]]. The piece <ref name="COVID">{{Cite web|url=https://steps-centre.org/blog/postnormal-pandemics-why-covid-19-requires-a-new-approach-to-science/|title=Post-normal pandemics: Why COVID-19 requires a new approach to science|date=25 March 2020|website=STEPS Centre}}</ref> argues that the COVID-19 emergency has all the elements of a post-normal science context, and notes that "this pandemic offers society an occasion to open a fresh discussion on whether we now need to learn how to do science in a different way".

== Special issues ==
The journal [https://www.journals.elsevier.com/futures ''FUTURES''] devoted several specials issues to post-normal science.

* The first was in [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00163287/31/7 1999] and included two editorial pieces, from [[Biography:Jerome Ravetz|Jerome Ravetz]] and [[Biography:Silvio Funtowicz|Silvio Funtowicz]], [http://www.andreasaltelli.eu/file/repository/Editorials1.pdf Post-Normal Science—an insight now maturing], and from [[Biography:Jerome Ravetz|Jerome Ravetz]]: [http://www.andreasaltelli.eu/file/repository/Editorials2.pdf What is Post-Normal Science].
* The second special issue, edited by Merryl Wyn Davies, was entitled "Post normal times" in 2011.<ref name="SI">Davies, M.W., Editor, 2011, Special Issue: Postnormal Times
Futures, Volume 43, Issue 2, Pages 135-228 (March 2011). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00163287/43/2</ref> This was a selection of papers from the symposium "Post Normal Science – perspectives & prospectives 26-27th June 2009, Oxford." A summary of the abstracts can be found on the [http://www.nusap.net/article.php?sid=48 NUSAP net].

* The third special issue on post-normal science was in 2017.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dankel |first1=Dorothy J. |last2=Vaage |first2=Nora S. |last3=van der Sluijs |first3=Jeroen P. |title=Post-normal science in practice |journal=Futures |date=August 2017 |volume=91 |pages=1–4 |doi=10.1016/j.futures.2017.05.009 |s2cid=148748060 |doi-access=free }}</ref> This special issue contains a selection of papers discussed at the University of Bergen's Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities between 2014 and 2016. The issue includes also two extended commentaries on the present crisis in science and the post-fact/post-truth discourse, one from Europe<ref name="Crisis_About"/> and one from Japan.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tsukahara |first1=Togo |title=Commentary: New Currents in Science: The Challenge of Quality, examining the discrepancies and incongruities between Japanese techno-scientific policy and the citizens' science movement in post-3/11 Japan |journal=Futures |date=1 August 2017 |volume=91 |pages=84–89 |doi=10.1016/j.futures.2017.04.008 |s2cid=149017703 |doi-access=free |hdl=20.500.14094/90005640 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

Another special issue on post-normal science was published on the journal ''Science, Technology, & Human Values'' in [http://nusap.net/article.php?sid=49 May 2011].

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book |ref=refRavetz1979 |author=Ravetz, Jerome R. |title=Scientific knowledge and its social problems |publisher=Oxford Univ. Press |location=Oxford |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-19-519721-1 |title-link=Scientific knowledge and its social problems }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Ravetz |first1=Jerome R. |title=Usable Knowledge, Usable Ignorance: Incomplete Science with Policy Implications |journal=Knowledge |date=September 1987 |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=87–116 |doi=10.1177/107554708700900104 |s2cid=146551904 }}
*Funtowicz, S.O. and J.R. Ravetz (1990). ''Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy''. Kluwer Academic Publishers, the Netherlands.
*{{cite book |ref=refRavetz2006 |author=Ravetz, Jerome R. |title=The No nonsense guide to science |publisher=New Internationalist |location=Oxford |year=2005 |title-link=No nonsense guide to science }}

==External links==
*[http://www.postnormaltimes.net ''Post-Normal Times'']
*[http://www.nusap.net NUSAP.net]
*[https://wurtv.wur.nl/p2gplayer/Player.aspx?id=dRs7cb Introductory lecture to Post Normal Science] (requires Internet Explorer)
*[http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2032821,00.html Article] on {{wipe|The Guardian}}  14 March 2007
*[https://theconversation.com/science-in-crisis-from-the-sugar-scam-to-brexit-our-faith-in-experts-is-fading-65016 Article] on The Conversation (website) 26 September 2016
*[http://www.andreasaltelli.eu/resources/ More articles on PNS]
*[http://iaste.info/musiasem/musiasem-in-depth/ About MUSIASEM] 
*[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00163287/43/2 Special issue on Futures]
*Centre for Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies, East West University (http://eastwestaffairs.org/cppfs/)

{{Science and technology studies|state=collapsed}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Post-Normal Science}}
[[Category:Scientific method]]
[[Category:Philosophy of science]]

{{Sourceattribution|Post-normal science}}