"why social scientists should engage with natural scientists" by philip lowe obe
DESCRIPTION
Presentation by Philip Lowe, Director of the Rural Economy & Land Use programme, given as part of the ACES seminar series at the University of Aberdeen: www.aces.ac.ukTRANSCRIPT
Philip Lowe
Why social scientists should engage with natural scientists
ACES November 2010
Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (1798 – 1857)
Social Physics – later ‘Sociology’
Queen of the Sciences- organised the lower sciences
• Social engineers of the Victorian era
Social scientists steering technical change in the mid/late 19th century
20th century – disciplinary specialization/ interdisciplinary reaction
• The need for articulation of the disciplines– Interdisciplinarity: periodic
engagement/disengagement of the disciplines
• Different prompts for interdisciplinary collaboration:– Educational; Academic; External/Societal – Cycle of practical application and academic
abstraction
“periods of marching and periods of weaving. For a time, the different academic professions march forward separately but in parallel, each in its own special way; then, for a time, they join hands and work together on the general problems arising in the areas where their techniques overlap”.
The changing relationship of social sciences towards technical R&D:
1950s-1970s – Era of technological optimism
1970s-1990s – Era of technological criticism/detachment
2000s – Upfront engagement
(Dis)engaging the Applied Social Sciences
1950s-1970s – Era of technological optimism Involvement in technological developments, focussed on barriers to diffusion of innovations.
(Dis)engaging the Applied Social Sciences
The changing relationship of social sciences towards technical R&D:
1970s-1990s – Era of technological criticism/ detachment
Social scientists reject ‘end of pipe’ role and address growing concerns over social and environmental impacts of new technologies.
(Dis)engaging the Applied Social Sciences
The changing relationship of social sciences towards technical R&D:
2000s – Upfront re-engagement?
Interdisciplinary research bringing critical social analysis into steering the design of socio-technical change for sustainable development
(Dis)engaging the Applied Social Sciences
The changing relationship of social sciences towards technical R&D:
Climate Change: New imperative for interdisciplinarity
Engaging the sciences
• Technological solutions on their own will not suffice
• A need for new technologies to go with grain of social change and social innovation which creatively exploits technological opportunities
• Innovation as combined socio-technical process
Engaging the sciences
If social scientists don’t construct the social, natural scientists will do it for them Example of ecology
Ecologists’ Construing of People
ScientificObject
Research Context
Function of Discipline
People construed as:
Classical Ecology 1900
Natural organisms
Natural conditions
Saving and protecting wild nature
Ecological audience
Applied Ecology1960
Natural organisms
Natural/human systems
Ecological management
Ecological agents
Sustainability Science2000
Natural/human organisms
Natural/human systems
Environmental governance
Ecological subjects/objects
1st 2nd 3rd
Work closely with stakeholders and end-users
51% 23% 11%
Work closely with social scientists in research projects
27% 31% 18%
Extend ecological concepts and methods to embrace the human/social dimensions
16% 15% 25%
Take into account the results of social science research
2% 13% 27%
Work closely with social or political movements
2% 13% 14%
Themselves adopt social science methods or concepts
2% 6% 5%
How can ecologists best take into account the social/human dimensions of their work?
The Relu (Rural Economy and Land Use) programme
Avoid partial framings of questions and complex problems
Introduce new framings of research problems
Contextualise technological opportunities and environmental constraints
Provide holistic solutions Improve accountability by
opening up framing of problems and resource allocation decisions
New Ways of Doing Science Claims for interdisciplinary research are that it can help:
The Relu programme
Roles To…
Problem framing
Reflect on the appropriate definition of problems
Public representation
Help illuminate or facilitate expression and engagement of public, consumer and stakeholder preferences, values and motivations
Systems analysis
Understand the organisation and governance of complex systems
What use social sciences in interdisciplinary projects:
Ecologists and social scientists in Relu
Ecologists collaborating with social scientists by activity (%)
Joint scientific publication
Joint dissemination
Joint scrutiny of concepts
Joint field work
Joint data analysis
Joint modelling
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90Dis
sem
inat
ion
Con
cept
ual
Met
hodo
logi
cal
Joint development of decision support tools
Combining techniques and methods
Combining social & natural science data sets
Collective framing of research
Joint decision making on research and method design
Joint prep of reports
Ecologists in Relu: How to choose a social science partner
Ecological modeller
Landscape ecologist
Economists have much in common with ecologists – they are quantitative, and develop predictive models
Working with qualitative social scientists is much more exciting and
challenging
?
Ecologists in Relu: How to choose a social science partner
Community ecologist
Applied ecologist
Ecology’s hypothetic-deductive approach is quite alien to many social scientists
As a field scientist, I believe that useful science can be done without recourse solely to hypothesis-testing
?
Ecologists in Relu: How to choose a social science partner
Spatial ecologist
Conservation ecologist
Links are easiest to the more reductionist social scientiststhan the more holistic ones
Ecologists and social scientistsboth have to understand systems that cannot be confined to simple equations or hypotheses, and may not be amenable to experiment
?
Unity of the social and environmental sciences in intervention mode
Mode of science
Observational
Experimentation
Intervention
Site of discovery
Field
Laboratory
Field
Knowledge generated
Natural observation, leading to induction
Results of controlled experiment, leading to deduction
Observation and experiment through intervention, leading to innovation
Epistemological assumption
All seeing , but detached and neutral observer
All powerful experimenter, ensuring completely controlled and replicable conditions
Researchers learn through field interventions
Examples
Classical environmental and social sciences
Physical and biological sciences
Action research, engineering, medicine, applied social and environmental sciences
Science in an unstable environment