ABSTRACT
Few will still doubt that our modern technological culture has reached a turning point, and that it must change significantly if we are to manage problems of risk and the environment. It may not yet be widely appreciated that science, hitherto accepted as the mainspring of technological progress, must also change. These problems of risk and the environment present new tasks for science; along with the discovery and application of scientific facts, new fundamental achievements for science must also be concerned with remedying the pathologies of our industrial system. We no longer require the ideal of a science that is totally value-free and ethically neutral, nor do we need to believe that rational and correct policy decisions automatically follow from the facts discovered by science. A new method, based on the recognition of uncertainty, complexity and quality, will guide the new scientific enterprise, which we call “post-normal science”.
