To answer Richard Tol’s remark – every natural scientist who ventures into policy or economics or other related social sciences is “moonlighting.” Given the structure of academia, so is any scientist or scholar of any sort who dares to take a problem-oriented or place-based approach towards resolving any kind of complex issue. At least Post-Normal Science offers some guidance for addressing issues of quality in this kind of a situation. I don’t know what Richard Tol has actually read but, referring to this as an “anything goes” approach is a gross caricaturization of it. If he thinks someone is doing this and calling it PNS, he should be more specific. In the meantime, anyone who wants to actually read something about PNS, is welcome to visit The Post-Normal Times, and some of the links therein.

I agree. It seems to me that “post-normal science” is essentially buying into the logical fallacies of argument by authority or ad hominem attack.

It doesn’t matter to science why a scientist says something. All that matters is whether he or she is right or wrong.

Then there are Funtowicz and Ravetz. They have trouble reading. They “discover” that the environmental sciences are a mix of natural and social science. They “discover” that Kuhn’s description of normal science does not apply to the social sciences — forgetting that Kuhn never said that. So, they invent a new term “post-normal science”.

The semantics apart, over the years, “post-normal science” has become an excuse for natural scientists to moonlight in the social sciences, for an “anything goes” approach to research, and for scientists to freely mix facts and values.

Funtowicz and Ravetz never meant that to happen, but it sure did. Post-normal science is best buried along with miasma, ether, and physiocracy.

Hans Van Storch writes, “Post-normal science. Climate science is clearly post-normal. That is unavoidable.”

No, I disagree completely. Climate science is post-normal because there is no incentive for the IPCC…or Mark Lynas…or Dennis Avery and Fred Singer…or Mike Hulme, for that matter…to make accurate predictions about the distant future.

I have a remedy, which I’ve posted on my own blog. It’s copy/pasted below.

Mark Bahner (who wants to be one of the select 100, if Exxon-Mobil or other company does as I suggest)

P.S. From my blog:

http://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2007/01/a_method_for_ac.html

I’ve written (repeatedly) that the “projections” in the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report are pseudoscientific nonsense. I haven’t seen the Fourth Assessment Report, but I’m so confident (or would that be depressed?) that they will be nonsense too, that I propose a better way.

The fundamental problem is that the IPCC has no incentive to tell the truth in its projections. But they do have an incentive to lie…to exaggerate the amount of warming that’s likely to occur. So that’s what they do…they lie. I propose the following solution:

The U.S. government should set up a prize fund totaling $400 million, payable in 2031. The prize fund would be open to any U.S. university with accredited science or engineering programs. The fund would be awarded as $200 million for first place, $100 million for second, $50 million for third, $25 million for fourth, $12 million for fifth, $6 million for sixth, $3 million for seventh…and $1 million until we run out of money.

Prizes would be awarded for most closely predicting the following parameters:

1) globally averaged surface temperature anomaly for 2029-2031, relative to 1990;
2) globally averaged lower tropospheric temperature anomaly for 2029-2031, relative to 1990;
3) Atlantic hurricane basin sea surface temperature anomaly for 2029-2031, relative to 1990;
4) average insured U.S. hurricane losses for 2029-2031,
5) global sea level rise for 2029-2031, relative to 1990;
6) CO2 atmospheric concentration;
7) anthropogenic (industrial) CO2 emissions; methane atmospheric concentration,
9) anthropogenic methane emissions,
10) anthropogenic black carbon emissions,

The ten parameters listed above would be weighted such that the first 5 parameters are twice as important as the bottom 5. Let’s say 100 universities enter the contest, with #1 given to the best prediction for each parameter, and #100 given to the worst prediction for each parameter.

Let’s take hypothetical University X (not Xavier!).: Suppose its rankings on the first 5 predictions are: #3, #4, #10, #20, #60. Since all those are multiplied by 2, its score would be: (3+4+10+20+60)*2 = 194. Suppose its rankings for the bottom 5 predictions are #20, #6, #70, #10, #8. Its score on the second 5 would be 114. So the total score would be 194 + 114 = 308. The university with the LOWEST score would get the $200 million first prize, the university with the next lowest score would get $100 million, and so on.

For a total investment of $400 million, the U.S. government would get far better predictions than it currently gets from the IPCC. (In fact, it’s not possible to get poorer predictions than from the IPCC…but that’s another story.)

In fact, Exxon-Mobil (to choose just one company at random ) could get a similarly good deal by offering a prize fund of only $4 million (i.e. the proposed U.S. government prize to universities, divided by 100). But this would be payable to INDIVIDUALS (or their heirs). Exxon could restrict the prize fund to 100 scientists and engineers of its choosing. The top prize of $2 million in 2031 would certainly be enough incentive to make truthful predictions!

Unstoppable global cooling – every 2400 years:

http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/annales/18/ag18/399.pdf

Thanks for the clarification.

1. I haven’t read the book, almost certainly won’t.
2. I assume that the work is not true, as least that is what I read at RealClimate and they are qualified to judge far better than me.
3. There is scientific truth.
4. Sometimes scientific truth matters, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes good policy making depends on knowing the difference, sometimes it doesn’t. This is just Pragmatism 101.

More explication will have to wait;-)

Thanks.

Hulme has identified a problem, and his diagnosis and prescriptions are useful, though limited. Clearly, scientific knowledge does not dictate either individual or community action; rather, decisions are typically based on views as to self-interest and values. Nevertheless, changes in our understanding of science and facts can play an important role in motivating changes in the decisions we make, so debates over science are important even where there is accord over applicable values and interests.

Further, while one might hope that scientists who speak publicly as to science will try to distinquish between their understanding of science and their value-based preferences for action, it is surely both an overstatement and an unreasonable expection to state that “If scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognise the social limits of their truth-seeking and reveal honestly and fully the values and beliefs they bring into their scientific activity.” Let the scientists be scientists and let the rest of us pay greater attention to the underlying arguments over values and interests, and forget the gobbledy gook about post-normal and third-type science.

The underlying debate is analytically quite simple to understand. It relates to the use of coerce governmental force to allocate resources, or costs, benefits and risks, in cases where there is no clear and accepted or enforceable system of property rights. Interest groups use science as a proxy in their respective efforts to win a favorable allocation of such resources, the “general public”’s interests suffer from want of articulation, and policy makers and bureacrats also act accornding to their own self-interests as they perceive them.

The fight over climate change thus resembles struggles over other assets owned by government or subject to legislative/administrative fiat. While private investors and groups such as Nature Conservance can buy and protect what they consider to be valuable land, in the case of public land it is impossible to express personal preferences and values in private market transactions. The result is that the disputes over resource use become battles over proper government action.

This is very much the case for climate and the atmosphere, which remains in key respects an open global commons. There are many interest groups involved across the globe, each favoring policies that advance its own values and interests. To name a few, clearly fossil fuel producers and major users have favored their continued free use of the commons; some propose policies that would provide greater markets for and financial returns on technology that they possess, others look for market opportunities in acting as go-betweens, others have a wide-scale social-engineering objective, and still others wish to minimize the role of government generally and to avoid infringements on national prerogatives.

In my view, since it is physically impossible to “homestead” and privatize the atmosphere – and thus to remove the problems from the public domain – clearly some type of government action will be required to avoid over-exploitation of the atmospheric commons. The primary questions thus center on questions of cost and benefit, efficiency and how to secure international consensus and compliance.

No routine here for my part, I don’t know why you are anticipating a trap.