Postnormal Science, Precautionary Principle, and Worst Cases: The Challenge of Twenty‐First Century Catastrophes*

Considering the damage caused by the recent spate of catastrophic events (e.g., Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001, and the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004), it is increasingly clear that complex, large-scale environmental problems will characterize the twenty-first century. We contend that the ability of science to address these problems is attenuated by the ideological embrace of scientific-technical rationality. With scientific and technological pursuits increasingly marching to the drum beat of economic growth, is there a place for science to operate driven not by short-term profitability, but the long-term interests of the public and needs of the environment? Can the problems associated with complex, large-scale catastrophes be addressed adequately by science and technology alone, especially considering that technological failure may be the primary cause of the catastrophe? The purpose of this article is to provide answers to these questions and to offer a tenable solution to the challenges posed by recent catastrophes. First, we outline a framework to better understand the changing relationship between science, stakeholders, and environmental problems. Second, we make the case that recent catastrophes are qualitatively different from past disasters. As a result, we discuss (1) the reasons why dichotomizing disasters as natural or technological is increasingly problematic empirically; and (2) the inability of traditional science to effectively address issues, damages, and problems stemming from recent catastrophes. Finally, we suggest that the more participatory approach of postnormal science, strengthened by the precautionary principle and worst-case analysis, is a viable strategy for addressing complex, large-scale catastrophes. With a primary focus on the historical transition from traditional societies to modern capitalist societies, Max Weber distilled from a complex analysis, rich in historical detail, an argument that centers on rationality. The defining feature of the mode of rationality responsible for the emergence of modern capitalist societies is the centrality of selecting the most efficient means to achieve a desired end. The forces of rationalization—science, technology, economic growth, and especially bureaucracy—pervade ever more spheres of life, supplanting preexisting social institutions and traditions. Another central feature of modernity involves the spread of diverse organizations into all dimensions of social life. In particular, the dependence on organizations to solve social problems has increased dramatically, especially problems that are complex and technical (Clarke 1999). Science and technology have both assumed an increasingly prominent role in the modern world. Since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, not only has science challenged religion and tradition as the only legitimate epistemology, but science itself has also emerged as one of the dominant ideologies of the modern era. As Habermas (1970) argued, in the modern world: Traditional legitimations could now be criticized against the standards of rationality of means–ends relations. . . . We have followed this process of “rationalization from above” up to the point where technology and science themselves in the form of a common positivistic way of thinking, articulated as technocratic consciousness, began to take the role of a substitute ideology for the demolished bourgeois ideologies. (P. 114) During the twentieth century, scientific research has become increasingly wedded to the state, technology, and industry. More importantly, scientific-technical rationality has become as hegemonic as the ideologies it supplanted. As such, the pursuit of knowledge via science and the application of this knowledge (technology) have become the appropriate means of achieving a desired end. The scientific method “perpetuates and extends itself not only through technology but as technology, and the latter provides the great legitimation of the expanding political power, which absorbs all spheres of culture” (Marcuse 1964:158). Marcuse (1964), on one hand, acknowledged that the application of science to management and to the division of labor yielded an increased productivity of the economic, political, and cultural enterprise. On the other hand, he pointed out that “this enterprise produced a pattern of mind and behavior which justified and absolved even the most destructive and oppressive features of the enterprise.”“Scientific-technical rationality,” he argued, “are welded together into new forms of social control” (Marcuse 1964:146). In Robert Merton's seminal account of the “ethos of science,” he suggested that “there was a necessary tension between the way science was internally organized and the way the capitalist economy worked. This [tension] was managed by preserving a certain autonomy for science” (quote from Calhoun 2006:16). Since this classic account, the autonomy of science in academia and government has been steadily compromised by commercial interests (Ravetz 2004). For example, the cooptation of scientific-rationality and the method of science in industry is manifest in what researchers refer to as the “triple helix,” that is, the “tight intertwining and mutual affinity of the government, commercial, and academic sectors . . .” (Guston 2006:19). In a meta-analysis, Bekelman, Li, and Gross (2003) found strong evidence that biomedical research directly sponsored by industry is more likely to produce proindustrial conclusions. However, most would assume that scientists employed in academia and government would operate with relative autonomy. Western universities, developed during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were legally autonomous institutions, relatively free from outside forces and unique in world historical development (Huff 2006). For example, one historic advantage of academic science, primarily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, was the creation and protection of a “public research” space, within which scholars could conduct research for the sake of the public good, free of the short-term constraints of commercial interests (Calhoun 2006; Washburn 2005). To whatever degree this “space” existed, it was undermined in the 1970s by a decrease in state funding, the restructuring of universities by corporate capitalism, and the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980 (Calhoun 2006). The Bayh-Dole Act increased the integration of the university system and business, primarily through the narrow provision of federal funds for academic research which generate commercially viable products (Calhoun 2006). Although only 7.7 percent of university research in 2000 was funded by industry, patents granted to U.S. universities have increased dramatically, from only 96 patents in 1965 to 3200 in 2000 (Krimsky 2006). This trend suggests a more commercialized character has emerged in academic research. The autonomy of governmental scientists is also suspect, as they report “greater constraints on their scientific autonomy than academic scientists . . .” and those “who speak freely end up either taking the role of ‘whistle blower’ or becoming marginalized by their federal agency” (Krimsky 2006:25). Furthermore, in the United States, some evidence indicates that the regulatory process can be subverted via“agency capture,” that is when “a regulatory agency comes to hold views more similar to the industry it is supposed to be regulating than the public it is supposed to protect” (Gramling and Krogman 1997:21; see also, Freudenburg and Gramling 1994). As such, the autonomy of science in “captured” regulatory agencies is undoubtedly biased and constrained. We argue that the ability of science to address complex, large-scale environmental problems of our own making is attenuated by the ideological embrace of scientific-technical rationality, as it precludes reflexivity and discourages critical discourse. With scientific and technological pursuits increasingly marching to the drum beat of economic growth, is there a place for science to operate, driven not by short-term profitability, but the long-term interests of the public and needs of the environment? Can the problems associated with complex, large-scale catastrophes be addressed adequately by science and technology alone, especially considering that technological failure may be the primary cause of the catastrophe? The purpose of this article is to further explicate the issues above and to offer a tenable solution to the challenges posed by complex, large-scale catastrophes. First, we outline a framework in an effort to better understanding the changing relationship between science, stakeholders, and environmental problems. Second, we make the case that recent catastrophes are qualitatively different from past disasters. As a result, we discuss (1) the reasons why dichotomizing disasters as natural or technological is increasingly problematic empirically; and (2) the inability of traditional science (applied science and professional consultancy) to effectively address issues, damages, and problems stemming from recent catastrophes. Finally, we suggest that the more participatory approach of postnormal science, strengthened by the precautionary principle and worst-case analysis, is a viable strategy for addressing the complex, large-scale catastrophes of the twenty-first century. Funtowics and Ravetz (1992) distinguish between three different types of problem-solving strategies: applied science, professional consultancy, and postnormal science. In their framework, the horizontal axis in Figure 1 moves outward, from low to high systems uncertainty. Funtowics and Ravetz (1992) make a distinction between three levels of systems uncertainty. First, problems can be solved at the “technical” level, when uncertainty is managed via the standard procedures of applied science. With relatively low uncertainty, gathering appropriate empirical evidence and developing sound theories is possible and routine, thus allowing organizations to effectively plan for the future (Clarke 1999). Problem-Solving Strategies. (Used with authors’ permission; Funtowics and Ravetz 1992.) Second, when problems are more complex and characterized by moderate levels of systems uncertainty, rigorous science may be conducted by multiple interests and presented in a politically contested arena where planning may be difficult, but not impossible (Clarke 1999). As such, the skills and personal judgments of professional consultants are required to solve the methodological problems of uncertainty, a solution that typically includes a debate about values and/or reliability and Ravetz when the of problems the to the of the uncertainty of and the and of are required at the and be solved through postnormal science and Ravetz the and of planning itself a means by which of their to the be justified as that can be (Clarke The axis in Figure 1 moves from low to high are as the and of for all that are by the at science is an strategy when systems uncertainty and are systems uncertainty and are professional is necessary and may applied science. applied science and professional form what is as traditional science. 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In Funtowics and Ravetz suggest that as the of the applied science the either on the one hand, or on the the for a form of that both includes and applied science and professional of of government and of may from the inability of traditional scientific to address problems associated with complex, large-scale and disasters. the of traditional science in addressing these it is not that new problem-solving are new for disasters was during the of with an in economic to natural disasters With Hurricane and the Indian Ocean there is that the of the twenty-first will this Considering the of the and of the damage caused by the recent spate of worst-case Katrina, 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001, and the Indian Ocean tsunami of be in the of for some to is clear that catastrophic either directly or via the will characterize social in the twenty-first century. 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We will this framework by that the of the precautionary approach and worst-case would postnormal science as a problem-solving Since the the precautionary approach has been as the most new approach in environmental and and has been in most and the protection and of the and As articulated in of the on and the precautionary approach In to the the precautionary approach be applied to to their there are of or of scientific not be as a for to environmental and of the precautionary approach suggest that application may as a to the development of scientific knowledge and technological development that could the of for the 2005). As suggested scientific knowledge is increasingly to commercial interests and have a to to in new for than of life. the precautionary approach may as a to certain types of and but is not a in making that the interests of the there are other of the precautionary For the precautionary approach the methodological of scientific uncertainty and the of from to to the and of that and 2005). 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We are increasingly on science and technology to solve environmental but some of these in environmental problems. (e.g., the system in to problems may generate (e.g., the of Hurricane uncertainty is a central in this scientists to uncertainty by a of in a Although applied scientists are not of as to the of science has which the and of environmental and of low uncertainty and organizations can effectively plan for the However, of moderate uncertainty, professional consultants are to produce that the interests of their to scientific In the contested or political arena of scientific those with and of can a of scientists and thus have the As scientific uncertainty and to uncertainty into but this failure may be through planning and the creation of In this we suggest that the relative autonomy of traditional scientists in academia and government has been steadily by the interests of As a of this traditional science has been in addressing the long-term problems associated with the emergence of complex, large-scale environmental problems. We are not that it is through postnormal science that scientists but through postnormal science that the of traditional science and this may not be the autonomous for it may be a political within which the can make in an acknowledged world of and uncertainty, that better the interests of the future and the In the participatory framework of postnormal science, worst-case by and worst-case by may as precautionary in the process about the and of environmental and for twenty-first catastrophes.