ABSTRACT
In the article “Science for a post-normal age”, Silvio O. Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz give the following verdict over the state of science in our industrial age:
Science always evolves, responding to its leading challenges as they change through history. After centuries of triumph and optimism, science is now called on to remedy the pathologies of the global industrial system of which it forms the basis. Whereas science was previously understood as steadily advancing in the certainty of our knowledge and control of the natural world, now science is seen as coping with many uncertainties in policy issues of risk and the environment. In response, new styles of scientific activity are being developed.
(Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993, p. 739) “The science appropriate to this new condition,” the authors continue, “will be based on the assumptions of unpredictability, incomplete control, and a plurality of legitimate perspectives.”