From crisis to normal science, and back again: Coming full “Kuhn cycle” in the career of Warren B. Hamilton

ABSTRACT In this paper, I use Thomas S. Kuhn’s model of scientific change to frame a brief, broad-brushed biographical sketch of the career of Warren B. Hamilton. I argue that Hamilton’s career can usefully be interpreted as encompassing a full “Kuhn cycle,” from a period of crisis in his early work, to one of normal science in midcareer, and back to something resembling crisis in his later research. Hamilton entered the field around mid-twentieth century when earth science can plausibly be described as being in a period of crisis. The then dominant fixist paradigm was facing an increasing number of difficulties, an alternative mobilist paradigm was being developed, and Hamilton played an important role in its development. The formulation of plate tectonics in the 1960s saw the overthrow of the fixist paradigm. This inaugurated a new phase of normal science as scientists worked within the new paradigm, refining it and applying it to different regions and various geological phenomena. Hamilton’s midcareer work fits largely into this category. Later, as the details of the plate-tectonic model became articulated more fully, and several of what Hamilton perceived as weakly supported conjectures became incorporated into the paradigm, problems began again to accumulate, and earth science, in Hamilton’s estimation, entered a new period of crisis. Radically new frameworks were now required, and Hamilton’s later work was dedicated principally to developing and articulating these frameworks and to criticizing mainstream views.

Economic-Ecological Principles and the Question of Mineral Waters in Brazil

The present study addresses the issue of mineral waters in Brazil, its institutional problem, and the consequences and conflicts arising from its irrational exploitation. As a solution to these problems and conflicts, it is proposed to integrate these mineral waters and their different types in the management of water resources and the application of guiding economic and ecological principles as in the case of the conception of post-normal science and the precautionary principle. To meet the objective, the authors opted for an exploratory and bibliographical research regarding the adopted procedure. It is concluded that the implementation of an institutional change will allow a participative and polycentric management, mainly at the level of the hydrographic basin committees, which will contribute to the application of the two mentioned principles and a sustainable management of this resource. However, there is a need for improvements in the national water resources policy to more effectively cover groundwater in which mineral waters are embedded.

Post-Normal Science: Passing the Scylla of Uncertainty and the Charybdis of the Politicization of Knowledge

The goal of the article to assess and comprehend the legitimacy, advantages, and disadvantages of the idea of “post-normal” and “citizen science”, the problem of treating science as a political actor, as well as the potential “democratization” of contemporary science. The nature and epistemological status of “post-normal” and “citizen” science, their place, and potential role in political decision-making in situations of significant uncertainty of the future (which is especially characteristic of ecology) discussed. We are prone to emphasize the importance of the traditional criteria of rationality, dominant among scientists working under the milieu of the norms and principles of “normal” science. Despite the transdisciplinary nature of the problems and the format of decision-making that are at the core of post-normal science. Nevertheless, the political subjectivity of modern science far from being full-fledged. Science does not participate in politics in an independent actor acting on the same plane and on a par with other political actors (parties or other political structures). The acquisition by the science of the status of a political subject or the loss of such largely depends on the nature of the political climate of the society. Political subjectivity is an imitative political atmosphere that cannot be the immediate goal and value of science. Aspiration for political subjectivity as a norm for post-normal science implies a radical change in its “self-consciousness”, socio-cultural status, and thus, increasing its political weight. However, this aspiration has any reasonable theoretical and practical sense only as an integral part of the movement towards true civil society and democracy.

Vistas for the Politicization of Scientific Knowledge Through the Lens of Post-Normal Science

The article summarizes some results of the discussion, which has the goal to grope the prospects for science to acquire the status of a political actor in contest with the emergence of the phenomenon of post-normal science. Leaning upon the comments and considerations expressed by the participants in the discussion, questions raised for a further, more in-depth study of the problem of politicizing science. These questions assess the importance of forecasts of human society development within the context of the constantly growing and deterrent problems of life support that accompany the movement towards the post-industrial era on a global scale.

Post-Normal Times Laboratory

Nowadays, for science as a type of activity and a socio-cultural institution, the question of the boundaries of its own agency is extremely relevant. Various global challenges (energy, climate, pandemics, security, etc.) are in tune with the challenges for the very concept of science, for its norms and values. In a discussion article, V.N. Porus and V.A. Bazhanov discuss aspects of the political agency of post-normal science (J. Ravetz, S. Funtowicz) — a type of science that claims to go beyond normal science (T. Kuhn) as a process simple and definite solution of problems within the framework of the prevailing paradigms. This article discusses aspects of the political subjectivity of science in the language of locations, the most important of which is the laboratory, understood in broad socio-cultural and socio-epistemic aspects. With the involvement of historical and scientific (atomic-nuclear problem) and modern situational cases (COVID-19), the problems of the relationship between “scientific” and “political” in the location of the expanded laboratory are considered. In the extended laboratory, the situational realization of the political agency of science is carried out. It is emphasized that science has not yet acquired the status of an independent and full-fledged political agency, and the corresponding institutionalization. The political agency of science is specific and episodic. Loaded with complexity and uncertainty modernity is considered by a number of authors at the present time as a post-normal times. It is noted that in the light of the post-normal nature of modernity while striving for political subjectivity, science (at the level of a multitude of participating actors) should not change its “personal ontology” (responsibility for the truth), which is difficult to achieve without an appeal to the virtue of wisdom.

Counter-reporting sustainability from the bottom up: the case of the construction company WeBuild and dam-related conflicts

Controversies around large-scale development projects offer many cases and insights which may be analyzed through the lenses of corporate social (ir)responsibility (CSIR) and business ethics studies. In this paper, we confront the CSR narratives and strategies of WeBuild (formerly known as Salini Impregilo), an Italian transnational construction company. Starting from the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas), we collect evidence from NGOs, environmental justice organizations, journalists, scholars, and community leaders on socio-environmental injustices and controversies surrounding 38 large hydropower schemes built by the corporation throughout the last century. As a counter-reporting exercise, we code (un)sustainability discourses from a plurality of sources, looking at their discrepancy under the critical lenses of post-normal science and political ecology, with environmental justice as a normative framework. Our results show how the mismatch of narratives can be interpreted by considering the voluntary, self-reporting, non-binding nature of CSR accounting performed by a corporation wishing to grow in a global competitive market. Contributing to critical perspectives on political CS(I)R, we question the reliability of current CSR mechanisms and instruments, calling for the inclusion of complexity dimensions in and a re-politicization of CS(I)R accounting and ethics. We argue that the fields of post-normal science and political ecology can contribute to these goals.

Cultural Psychology, Diversity, and Representation in Open Science

The current moment in psychology is one of great challenges and great opportunities. The open science movement—the move toward more transparent, credible, and reproducible science—has led to a redefinition of what constitutes “normal science.” However, the field of cultural psychology, broadly construed, has by and large not engaged with the open science movement and, likewise, the open science movement has by and large not engaged with cultural psychology. The purpose of the present chapter is to bring open science and cultural psychology closer together, highlighting how they can benefit one another. In doing so, the discussion is focused on three types of representations regarding diversity in psychological research and how they intersect with open science: representation of researchers, or the diversity of the scientists actually doing the research; representation of samples, or who is included as participants in our research studies; and representation of perspectives, or the substantive conceptual and theoretical views we bring to our work. For each of these three types of representation the problem is outlined, followed by a discussion of how embracing the principles and behaviors of open science can help.

NIMH Roundtable Discussion - Promissory Notes and Prevailing Norms in Social and Behavioral Sciences Research (1997)

Most workshops convened by the National Institute's of Health are devoted to the puzzle-solving activities of normal science,where the puzzles themselves and the strategies available for solving them are determined largely in advance by the sharedparadigmatic assumptions, frameworks, and priorities of the scientific community's research paradigm. They are designed tofacilitate what Thomas Kuhn referred to as elucidating topological detail within a map whose main outlines are available inadvance. And apparently for good reason. Historical studies by Kuhn and others reveal that science moves fastest and penetratesmost deeply when its practitioners work within well-defined and deeply ingrained traditions and employ the concepts, theories,methods, and tools of a shared paradigm. No paradigm is perfect and none is capable of identifying, let alone solving, all of theproblems relevant to a given domain of inquiry. Thus, the essential day-to-day business of normal science is not to question thelimits or adequacy of a given paradigm, but rather to exploit the presumed virtues for which it was adopted. As Kuhn cautioned inhis discussion of paradigms, re-tooling, in science as in manufacture, as an extravagance to be reserved for the occasion thatdemands it.