Jerome R. Ravetz

Jerome (Jerry) Ravetz is a philosopher of science. He is best known for his books analysing scientific knowledge from a social and ethical perspective, focussing on issues of quality. He is the co-author (with Silvio Funtowicz) of the NUSAP notational system and of Post-normal science. He is currently an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, University of Oxford.

Life and work

Ravetz was born in Philadelphia; his grandfather was a Russian-Jewish immigrant and his father a truck driver and trade union organiser. He attended Central High School and Swarthmore College. He came to England in 1950 on a Fulbright Scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied for a PhD in Pure Mathematics under the supervision of A.S. Besicovitch. In 1955 his passport was taken away, as part of the wave of McCarthyism; it was returned in 1958 and in 1961 he became a British citizen. He taught mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania and then at Durham University. In 1957 he moved to the University of Leeds to join Stephen Toulmin in the establishment of a centre in the History and Philosophy of Science. He stayed at Leeds, eventually becoming a Reader, until taking early retirement in 1983. Since then he has been an independent scholar.

He has visited at Utrecht University, Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of California, Santa Cruz, Fudan University (Shanghai), the University of Texas at Dallas, the Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Luxembourg. Over the years he has worked closely with colleagues at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy.

Ravetz's earliest research, after mathematics, was in the history of the mathematical sciences, with works on Copernicus and Fourier.
In the sixties Ravetz, focused on contradictions in the functioning of science and its image, between a narrative of progress and one of depredation science.Ravetz, Jerome R., 1971. Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems. Oxford University Press. He had proposed an unusual approach to study these contradictions. He highlighted the craft character of scientific knowledge, a set of procedures and evaluations that are part of the social activity of science. The quality of research, according to Ravetz, is influenced by this social component of scientific knowledge, which is strongly influenced by the professional models communicated through teaching. Due to this, the standard of adequacy is set by norms culturally stablished and shared.

His influential book ''Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems'' went through several English language editions, plus German and Japanese translations, and was republished in 1996. This book raises issues of uncertainty and ethics in the social practice of science. It was an early attempt to recast the philosophy of science for the conditions of 'industrialised science' and to shift the philosophy of science from epistemology to the social and ethical aspects of science. In it he proposed a 'critical science' for a new version of the idealism that had characterised science in the pre-industrial age.

In the years around 1970 he was an active member of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science.

From 1973 to 1976 he was Executive Secretary of the Council for Science and Society in London, whose founder was the law reformer Paul Sieghart. He drafted its report on 'The Acceptability of Risks'. From 1977 to 1978, he was a member of the Genetic Manipulation Advisory Group, regulating research in recombinant DNA.
Working with Silvio Funtowicz in Leeds Gooday, G. (2006). History and philosophy of science at Leeds. Notes and Records Royal Society, 60, 183–192.
he created the NUSAP notational system, described in their book ''Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy'' (Reidel 1990). This was the stimulus for the development of the 'Guidance' for managing uncertainty, at the Netherlands Environment Agency.A.C. Petersen, P.H.M. Janssen, J.P. van der Sluijs, J.S. Risbey, J.R. Ravetz, J.A. Wardekker, H. Martinson Hughes, Guidance for Uncertainty Assessment and Communication, 2nd Edition, PBL, 2013.
They also created the theory of Post-normal science, which applies when 'Facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent.'Funtowicz, S. O. and Ravetz, J. R., 1991. "A New Scientific Methodology for Global Environmental Issues", in Costanza, R. (ed.), Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability: 137–152. New York: Columbia University Press.Funtowicz, S. O. and Ravetz, J. R., 1992. "Three types of risk assessment and the emergence of postnormal science", in Krimsky, S. and Golding, D. (eds.), Social theories of risk: 251–273. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood.Funtowicz, S. and Ravetz, J., 1993. "Science for the post-normal age", Futures, 31(7): 735-755.Weingart, P. From "Finalization" to "Mode 2": old wine in new bottles?. Social Science Information 36 (4), 1997. Pp. 591-613.Turnpenny, J., Jones, M., & Lorenzoni, I. (2010). Where now for post-normal science? A critical review of its development, definitions, and uses. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 0162243910385789.Carrozza, C. (2015). Democratizing Expertise and Environmental Governance: Different Approaches to the Politics of Science and their Relevance for Policy Analysis. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 17(1), 108-126. A collection of his essays, The merger of knowledge with power: essays in critical science was also published in 1990. With Zia Sardar he co-authored Cyberfutures: Culture and Politics on the Information Superhighway in 1996. His most recent book is The No nonsense guide to science (New Internationalist 2006).
His research continues in two main directions: new trends in the social practice of science; and new approaches to the management of uncertainty. On the former, he has co-authored (with Silvio Funtowicz) chapters on 'Science, New Forms of' and 'Peer Review and Quality Control' for the International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences (2015).Funtowicz, S. and Ravetz, J. R., 2015. "Peer Review and Quality Control", Wright, J. D., (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition. Oxford: Elsevier.Ravetz, J. R. and Funtowicz, S. O., 2015. "Science, New Forms of", in Wright, J. D., (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Vol. 21: 248–254. Oxford: Elsevier. On the latter he is concerned with the analysis of ignorance and the representation and manipulation of quantitative information where there is 'not even one significant digit'. He has also recently written
on the quality control crisis of science.Benessia, A., Funtowicz, S., Giampietro, M., Guimarães Pereira, A., Ravetz, J., Saltelli, A., Strand, R., van der Sluijs, J., 2016. The Rightful Place of Science: Science on the Verge. The Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University.Ravetz, J., 2016
How should we treat science’s growing pains? The Guardian, June 8th 2016

He is currently an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society at the University of Oxford. His research focus is on the impacts of technological progress on science, and new forms of science governance necessary for the protection of society, the environment and science itself. Ravetz studies new institutional models and collective behaviors that rehabilitate the function of science as a solver of the problem of the sustainability of contemporary material society that derives from the ongoing technological development.

He was interviewed by the Great Transition Initiative's blog in June 2016. On May 31, 2019, the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society in Oxford has devoted a seminar to honour his 90th birthday. He published a World View piece in the journal Nature on November 19, 2019, entitled ''Stop the science training that demands ‘don’t ask’''.J. Ravetz, 2019
Stop the science training that demands ‘don’t ask’
Nature, 575, 417 .
Science governance, unknown unknowns, science as a solver of the problem of the sustainability of society are tackled in the context of present debates.S. O. Funtowicz and J. R. Ravetz, “Science for the Post-Normal Age, with a new foreword,” Commonplace, 14-May-2020. nline Available: https://commonplace.knowledgefutures.org/pub/6qqfgms5. ccessed: 02-Oct-2020
Together with other scholars, Ravetz has contributed to the debate on the COVID-19 pandemic
Postnormal pandemics: Why COVID-19 requires a new approach to science, guest post on STEPS by David Waltner-Toews, Annibale Biggeri, Bruna De Marchi, Silvio Funtowicz, Mario Giampietro, Martin O’Connor, Jerome R. Ravetz, Andrea Saltelli and Jeroen P. van der Sluijs.
/ref> and use of mathematical models.Saltelli A, Bammer G, Bruno I, Charters E, Di Fiore M, Didier E, Espeland WN et al. (2020a) Five ways to ensure that models serve society: a manifesto. Nature 582:482–484. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01812-9.

Quotes

"The activity of modern natural science has transformed our knowledge and control of the world about us; but in the process it has also transformed itself; and it has created problems that natural science alone cannot solve". ''Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems'', Oxford 1971, p. 9.

"Wherever there's a system, there's a racket to beat it." Ibidem, p. 295.

"Any artifact will have: intended use, creative new use, incompetent misuse and malevolent abuse".König, A. and Ravetz, J. eds., 2017. Sustainability science: Key issues. Routledge. Chapter 18, Postscript: Heuristics for Sustainability Science.

Bibliography

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See also

* Post-normal science
* American philosophy
* List of American philosophers
* Science wars
* Gaming the system
* Goodhart's Law
* Silvio Funtowicz

References

External links

'Crisis, what crisis in Science?'
Seminar at th
Institute for Science, Innovation and Society
Oxford University, July 30, 2018, hosted by Jerome R. Ravetz with Philip Mirowski an
Andrea Saltelli


Reflections on ‘informed critical resistance, reform and the making of futures’
Post-Normal Science Symposium in Barcelona: Address by Jerome Ravetz, 15 November 2018.

Science - post normal perspectivs: Jerry Ravetz at 90, a workshop of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society to honour Jerome R. Ravetz 90th birthday. May 31st, 2019, Oxford.

Videos from Science - post normal perspectivs: Jerry Ravetz at 90, a workshop of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society to honour Jerome R. Ravetz 90th birthday. May 31st, 2019, Oxford.
also available a
podcast.

Matt Finch interviews Jerry Ravetz for Mechanical Dolphin: 'Post-normal science in the time of COVID-19: Discussion with Jerome Ravetz'
July 13, 2020.

Welcome to the PNS Movement at PNS5 (post-normal science symposium), Florence
September 21, 2020. See the Symposium progra
here

External links

Guidance for Uncertainty Assessment and Communication, Netherlands Environmental AgencyJerome Ravetz homepageRecent articles by RavetzOngoing discussions of Post-Normal Science can be found on the blogMore articles and excerpts from J. Ravetz's works

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ravetz, Jerome
1929 births
Living people
20th-century American philosophers
American expatriate academics
Philosophers of science
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
British people of Russian-Jewish descent
Central High School (Philadelphia) alumni
Swarthmore College alumni
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Victims of McCarthyism
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Academics of Durham University
Academics of the University of Leeds
21st-century American mathematicians
British mathematicians
People associated with the University of Oxford
Carnegie Mellon University faculty
Harvard University faculty
Fudan University faculty
Institute for Advanced Study faculty
Utrecht University faculty
Historians of science
Philosophers of mathematics
20th-century American mathematicians
Mathematicians from Pennsylvania
Fulbright alumni