---
title: "Post-normal science"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:16:41.011972+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Applications ==
Beside its dominating influence in the literature on 'futures', PNS is considered to have influenced the ecological 'conservation versus preservation debate', especially via its reading by American pragmatist Bryan G. Norton. According to Jozef Keulartz  the PNS concept of "extended peer community" influenced how Norton's developed his 'convergence hypothesis'. The hypothesis posits that ecologists of different orientation will converge once they start thinking 'as a mountain', or as a planet. For Norton this will be achieved via deliberative democracy, which will pragmatically overcome the black and white divide between conservationists and preservationists. More recently it has been argued that conservation science, embedded as it is in a multi-layered governance structures of policy-makers, practitioners, and stakeholders, is itself an 'extended peer community', and as a result conservation has always been 'post-normal'.
Other authors attribute to PNS the role of having stimulated the take up of transdisciplinary methodological frameworks, reliant on the social constructivist perspective embedded in PNS.
Post-normal science is intended as applicable to most instances where the use of evidence is contested due to different norms and values. Typical instances are in the use of evidence based policy and in evaluation.
As summarized in a recent work "the ideas and concepts of post normal science bring about the emergence of new problem solving strategies in which the role of science is appreciated in its full context of the complexity and the uncertainty of natural systems and the relevance of human commitments and values."
For Peter Gluckman (2014), chief science advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, post-normal science approaches are today appropriate for a host of problems including  "eradication of exogenous pests […], offshore oil prospecting, legalization of recreational psychotropic drugs, water quality, family violence, obesity, teenage morbidity and suicide, the ageing population, the prioritization of early-childhood education, reduction of agricultural greenhouse gases, and balancing economic growth and environmental sustainability".
 Conservation science is also a field where PNS is suggested as to fill the space between research, policy, and implementation, as well as to ensure pluralism in analysis. Ecosystem services are a topical subject for PNS.
Reviews of the history and evolution of PNS, its definitions, conceptualizations,
and uses can be found in Turnpenny et al., 2011, and in The Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics (Nature and Society). Articles on PNS are published in Nature and related journals.

== Criticism ==
A criticism of post-normal science is offered by Weingart (1997) for whom post-normal science does not introduce a new epistemology but retraces earlier debates linked to the so-called "finalization thesis". For Jörg Friedrichs  – comparing the issues of climate change and peak energy – an extension of the peer community has taken place in the climate science community, transforming climate scientists into 'stealth advocates', while scientists working on energy security – without PNS, would still maintain their credentials of neutrality and objectivity. Another criticism is that the extended peer community's use undermines the scientific method's use of empiricism and that its goal would be better addressed by providing greater science education.

== The crisis of science ==
It has been argued  that post-normal science scholars have been prescient in anticipating the present crisis in science's quality control and reproducibility. A group of scholars of post-normal science orientation has published in 2016 a volume on the topic, discussing inter alia what this community perceive as the root causes of the present science's crisis.

== Quantitative approaches ==
Among the quantitative styles of analysis which make reference to post-normal science one can mention NUSAP for numerical information, sensitivity auditing for indicators and mathematical modelling, Quantitative storytelling for exploring multiple frames in a quantitative analysis, and MUSIASEM in the field of social metabolism. A work where these approaches are suggested for sustainability is in.

== Mathematical modelling ==
In relation to mathematical modelling post-normal science suggests a participatory approach, whereby 'models to predict and control the future' are replaced by 'models to map our ignorance about the future', in the process exploring and revealing the metaphors embedded in the model. PNS is also known for its definition of garbage in, garbage out (GIGO): in modelling GIGO occurs when the uncertainties in the inputs must be suppressed, lest the outputs become completely indeterminate.

== Special issues ==
The journal FUTURES devoted several specials issues to post-normal science.

The first was in 1999 and included two editorial pieces, from Jerome Ravetz and Silvio Funtowicz, and from Jerome Ravetz.
The second special issue, edited by Merryl Wyn Davies, was entitled "Post normal times" in 2011. This was a selection of papers from the symposium "Post Normal Science – perspectives & prospectives 26-27th June 2009, Oxford." A summary of the abstracts can be found on the NUSAP net.
The third special issue on post-normal science was in 2017. This special issue contains a selection of papers discussed at the University of Bergen's Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities between 2014 and 2016. The issue includes also two extended commentaries on the present crisis in science and the post-fact/post-truth discourse, one from Europe and one from Japan.
Another special issue on post-normal science was published in 2011 on the journal Science, Technology, & Human Values.

== References ==

== Bibliography ==
Ravetz, Jerome R. (1979). Scientific knowledge and its social problems. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-19-519721-1.
Ravetz, Jerome R. (September 1987). "Usable Knowledge, Usable Ignorance: Incomplete Science with Policy Implications". Knowledge. 9 (1): 87–116. doi:10.1177/107554708700900104.
Funtowicz, S.O. and J.R. Ravetz (1990). Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy. Kluwer Academic Publishers, the Netherlands.
Ravetz, Jerome R. (2005). The No nonsense guide to science. Oxford: New Internationalist.

== External links ==
NUSAP.net
Article on The Guardian  14 March 2007
More articles on PNS
Report from Secretariat of the International Seabed Authority about "post-normal science for recalibration of policy instruments."