Uncertainty and Society – Group 5

In his 2004 published article ‘How science makes environmental controversies worse’, Daniel Sarewitz explains how in his view uncertainties inherent in environmental and overall political controversies are not reduced by an abundance of scientific research but rather widened. The abundance of research, or as Sarewitz calls it this ‘excess of objectivity’ (Sarewitz, 2004), creates uncertainty because each scientific discipline as well as each individual scientist is influenced by a specific set of values and predispositions and therefore prioritizes different parts or aspects of the scientific process. And these different priorities then stand in the way of a certain scientific consensus to effectively guide or advise policy decisions. With this work he calls into question the entire concept of objective science being used as a key factor in political decision making. Sarewitz instead argues that political decision making should mainly be derived from cultural and social values. Scientific contributions, openly communicating the underlying values, preferences and priorities, should take their ‘rightful place as one among a plurality of cultural factors that help determine how people frame a particular problem’ (Sarewitz, 2004).

Sarewitz underlines this hypothesis with a string of arguments and several examples of scientific debates that in his opinion increased uncertainty and controversy. An important part of his line of thought is that the excess of objectivity, in any politically relevant scientific debate, always leads to conflicting conclusions among their partakers. Not only can political orientation or financial interests influence scientists’ point of view, but also disciplinary perspectives through necessarily influencing scientists’ value systems and scientific priorities. And these disputes over interpretation of scientific data is what Sarewitz then calls uncertainty. It manifests in the form of ‘scientific disunity and political conflict’ and therefore does not directly relate to the unknowable true quantity value of a variable (the error) but rather signifies the range of values or interpretations of a certain aspect in the engaged scientific community. Thus, the engagement of a wider scientific audience from a variety of disciplines brings with it a wider range of value systems and viewpoints into the interpretation of pure data and therefore very probably increases uncertainty around this aspect.

In the end, Sarewitz extends his argument on the debate about climate change action. Following his own position, he argues that climate policy should primarily be shaped by value systems and can then be additionally guided by scientific arguments. We neither disagree that value systems should shape policy actions, nor with his definition of uncertainty, there are problems with this interpretation of such a complex topic as climate change though. Sarewitz sees the natural sciences as separate disciplines, each with a distinct value system. Therefore, he concludes that each different viewpoint must lead to different interpretations. We however argue that science can be seen as inherently interdisciplinary and the overlap between different fields discourages this distinction. Thus, despite different disciplinary priorities, interdisciplinary collaboration can bring about a larger consensus in the scientific community. That does not mean, that all influences by individual, societal or cultural values can or even should be extinguished. Rather, that through an interdisciplinary approach these differences can be overcome to create a basic consensus, which of course will still be subdivided by different value systems and priorities. What’s more, over the last 17 years since Sarewitz has published this essay, interdisciplinary approaches have helped to create certainties in some of his mentioned issues. They have defined a range of possible outcomes of carbon emission reductions, ascertained (to a limited degree of course) the influence of anthropogenic climate change on extreme weather events, marine ecosystem etc., while being able to reduce uncertainty around future climate prediction under certain emission scenarios.

by Simon Lentz