Alternative Modernities

Thoughts

  • Thoughts
  • The Divide
  • Technically Together
  • Current Research
  • Teaching
  • About Me
  • Vitae

6/30/2022

Navigating Post-Normality for Contentious Science Policy

Read Now
 
Science and technology scholars write and talk a lot about post-normal science, the unique political situation that emerges for issues where there are considerable stakes and high levels of (perceived) uncertainty. I was asked to give a talk on short notice at the World Biodiversity Forum this week, and I used it as an opportunity to think through how people involved in areas of post-normal science and politics try to cope with or escape the situation of post-normality. Can the stakes be reduced while still addressing the problem? Can the perceived uncertainties be lessened without other stakeholders seeing it as dishonest, biased, or unfair? Those are just a few of the thoughts that I explored. Unfortunately, the talk wasn't recorded, but here is a link to the slides.

Share

6/1/2022

Rural People and Conservation

Read Now
 
Biodiversity conservation is riddled with conflict. This is unsurprising, given that people live where we also find important and charismatic animal species. Although there has been a lot of good work looking into how to reconcile the often divergent interests of conservationists and rural peoples, I feel like a lot of it is on the wrong track. No doubt is it well intentioned. There is a long history of treating rural people as conservation "problems," one that goes at least as far back as efforts to remove native peoples from America's newly established national parks. The idea that species can only be protected by creating "pristine" wilderness areas is increasingly recognized as not only ahistorical but also the driving force behind the expropriation of land from rural residents. The future of conservation relies on moving past the historical antagonism between typically urban-dwelling, "science following" conservation advocates and the people who live within the landscapes seen as needing protection.
         The response within conservation has paralleled a similar move within Science and Technology Studies, consequently suffering some of the same drawbacks. Researchers in STS have done great work to highlight the existence of "lay expertise," that non-scientists have important knowledge to contribute. Similarly, environmental scientists have uncovered how indigenous and local peoples often have an intricate understanding of their local environment and have developed strategies that allow them to live off the land in ways that sometimes more sustainable or supportive of biodiversity than what so-called modern people do. Work in both these areas try to encourage scientists to be more humble and open to listening to non-scientists.
              The risk is romanticizing lay people. Not all indigenous peoples have lived so sustainability. Mesoamerica, for instance, was once dominated by groups who sustained themselves as much by imperialism as by their home grown agricultural practices. More broadly the antithesis of "follow the science", can devolve into a kind of epistemological populism, where it is non-experts whose knowledge becomes sacrosanct or unquestionable. Recall how Newt Gingerich, in the lead up to the 2016 election, argued that American's belief that the country was more dangerous than in the past, despite statistics to the contrary, was all that mattered for the election. Democracy is served by putting different kinds of knowledge in conversation, not by venerating the little guy. The question here is not whether the average American is wrong or if FBI statistics are right, but why Americans would still feel unsafe despite this data. The apparent contradiction uncovers a unresolved problem that policy should address. 
        I think that part of the problem is that we've confused political problems for knowledge conflicts. Past injustices were often justified by science, such as when pristine (read "human free") protected areas were argued to be the only way to preserve nature. So the appropriate response seems to be that we can prevent those injustices by elevating lay knowledge so as to be equal in value to science. The idea is that the power differential was created by the unequal weight given to different kinds of knowledge, but really the causality worked in the opposite direction: Power legitimates one group's knowledge over that of others. So we focus excessively on developing ways to give diverse forms of knowledge equal weight when the real issue is simply that the way we decide what is a problem and how to solve it is insufficiently democratic. We're treating the symptom rather than the cause.
             The way out is both agnostic and agonistic. I think it's better to not get into the morass of deciding which knowledge should have the most influence or whether different ways of knowing are or are not equal. Rather, groups with different ideas about what is important and different ways of knowing about the environment should have more equal say in deciding how to solve collective problems. We settle political conflicts through democracy, not convoluted analytical schemes for realizing epistemological equality. This is also the right way, because rural people should have a say in what conservation measures are deployed where they live and how, full stop. They have this right not because they have special knowledge or because they live in appropriately non-western or native ways, but because they live there and have a stake. No amount of scientific know-how justifies depriving someone else of a say in decisions that affect them, insofar as we want to live in democratic societies. 
                 In any case, if you intrigued by this line of thought, take a peak at a commentary that I recently published in One Earth. 
          

Share

Details

    Author

    Taylor C. Dotson is an associate professor at New Mexico Tech, a Science and Technology Studies scholar, and a research consultant with WHOA. He is the author of The Divide: How Fanatical Certitude is Destroying Democracy and Technically Together: Reconstructing Community in a Networked World. Here he posts his thoughts on issues mostly tangential to his current research. 

    Follow @dots_t

    Archives

    July 2022
    June 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    August 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    June 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    Blog Posts
    On Vaccine Mandates
    Escaping the Ecomodernist Binary
    No, Electing Joe Biden Didn't Save American Democracy
    When Does Someone Deserve to Be Called "Doctor"?
    If You Don't Want Outbreaks, Don't Have In-Person Classes
    How to Stop Worrying and Live with Conspiracy Theorists
    Democracy and the Nuclear Stalemate
    Reopening Colleges & Universities an Unwise, Needless Gamble
    Radiation Politics in a Pandemic
    What Critics of Planet of the Humans Get Wrong
    Why Scientific Literacy Won't End the Pandemic
    Community Life in the Playborhood
    Who Needs What Technology Analysis?
    The Pedagogy of Control
    Don't Shovel Shit
    The Decline of American Community Makes Parenting Miserable
    The Limits of Machine-Centered Medicine
    Why Arming Teachers is a Terrible Idea
    Why School Shootings are More Likely in the Networked Age
    Against Epistocracy
    Gun Control and Our Political Talk
    Semi-Autonomous Tech and Driver Impairment
    Community in the Age of Limited Liability
    Conservative Case for Progressive Politics
    Hyperloop Likely to Be Boondoggle
    Policing the Boundaries of Medicine
    Automating Medicine
    On the Myth of Net Neutrality
    On Americans' Acquiescence to Injustice
    Science, Politics, and Partisanship
    Moving Beyond Science and Pseudoscience in the Facilitated Communication Debate
    Privacy Threats and the Counterproductive Refuge of VPNs
    Andrew Potter's Macleans Shitstorm
    The (Inevitable?) Exportation of the American Way of Life
    The Irony of American Political Discourse: The Denial of Politics
    Why It Is Too Early for Sanders Supporters to Get Behind Hillary Clinton
    ​Science's Legitimacy Problem
    Forbes' Faith-Based Understanding of Science
    There is No Anti-Scientism Movement, and It’s a Shame Too
    American Pro Rugby Should Be Community-Owned
    Why Not Break the Internet?
    Working for Scraps
    Solar Freakin' Car Culture
    Mass Shooting Victims ARE on the Rise
    Are These Shoes Made for Running?
    Underpants Gnomes and the Technocratic Theory of Progress
    Don't Drink the GMO Kool-Aid!
    On Being Driven by Driverless Cars
    Why America Needs the Educational Equivalent of the FDA

    On Introversion, the Internet and the Importance of Small Talk
    I (Still) Don't Believe in Digital Dualism
    The Anatomy of a Trolley Accident
    The Allure of Technological Solipsism
    The Quixotic Dangers Inherent in Reading Too Much
    If Science Is on Your Side, Then Who's on Mine?
    The High Cost of Endless Novelty - Part II
    The High Cost of Endless Novelty
    Lock-up Your Wi-Fi Cards: Searching for the Good Life in a Technological Age
    The Symbolic Analyst Sweatshop in the Winner-Take-All Society
    On Digital Dualism: What Would Neil Postman Say?
    Redirecting the Technoscience Machine
    Battling my Cell Phone for the Good Life

    Categories

    All
    Academic Life
    Acquiescence
    Automation
    Bias
    Black Mirror
    Cognitive Limitations
    Common Sense
    Community
    Conspiracy Theory
    Continuity Arguments
    CrossFit
    Deficit Model
    Democracy
    Diagnostic Style Of Politics
    Digital Dualism
    Digital Technology
    Disaster
    Disconnection
    Economic Democracy
    Economics
    Energy Reduction
    Epistocracy
    Fanaticism
    Foulcault
    Gmo Food
    Governance Of Technoscience
    Green Chemistry
    Green Illusions
    Gun Violence
    Inequality
    Intelligent Trial And Error
    Internet
    LBGTQ
    Legitimacy
    Megachurches
    Mesh Networks
    Nanoscience
    Narratives
    Nature
    NCAA
    Neophilia
    Net Neutrality
    Networked Individualism
    New Urbanism
    Nuclear Energy
    Panopticon
    Paranoia
    Permissionless Innovation
    PhD
    Philosophical Liberalism
    Political Talk
    Politics
    Progress
    Pseudoscience
    Renewable Energy
    Science
    Science And The Military
    Scientific Controversy
    Scientism
    Social Capital
    Social Networks
    Sweatshops
    Technocracy
    Technological Liberalism
    Technological Momentum
    Technological Solipsism
    Technological Somnambulism
    Technology
    The Facts
    The Good Life
    Thick Community
    Tristan Harris
    Trust
    Uncertainty
    Unintended Consequences
    Virtual Others
    Wall Street Journal
    Winner-take-all Society
    Worker Cooperatives

    RSS Feed

    Blogs I Follow:
    Technopolis
    ​Responsible Innovation
    Rough Type
    Technoscience as if People Mattered
© COPYRIGHT TAYLOR DOTSON 2016. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Thoughts
  • The Divide
  • Technically Together
  • Current Research
  • Teaching
  • About Me
  • Vitae