ABSTRACT
Restructuring incentives ecologically by making price reflect environmental cost is just one of the social challenges thrust upon humanity by environmental problems. Ecological problems created since the advent of science have also subverted the naive belief in science as impartial knowledge accumulated by disinterested researchers. Another serious problem consists of sciences relationship with the economic system, the political system, and the legal system in terms of the burden of proof that products or production procedures are dangerous. Postmodernists contend that humanity has developed beyond traditional worldviews based on religion and beyond the modern worldview founded on the Enlightenment ideals that gave rise to science, liberal democracy, and/or socialism. The interplay between social action and the processes of nature—in particular, the manipulation of nature by humans and the risks attendant on the reaction of nature—creates opportunities for a thorough reconstruction of society, its culture, and its economic and political institutions.
