A whole string of claims and counter-claims regarding the safety of genetically modified (GM) food were made last month. First, the Royal Society announced that, as far as the unpublished data from research at the Rowett Research Institute in Scotland is concerned, there was no evidence of adverse health effects from eating GM potatoes. Then the British Medical Association (BMA) expressed its concern over the long-term effects of GM food and called for a ban. Meanwhile, the European Commission announced a freeze on licences for modified plants in the wake of American research that shows that GM pollen can kill monarch butterflies. The government, however, continued to insist that GM food is safe and, in an attempt to shore up public confidence, announced a wide-ranging regulatory framework.
But the citizenry remains sceptical: a MORI survey commissioned by the government showed that only 1 per cent of the public believes that there are any real benefits to be had from GM foods. Even the chief scientific adviser, Sir Robert May, has now come out of the closet and suggested that there should be a four-year ban on releasing GM crops on to the market. So should there be a ban on GM foods? Can we believe the assurances of the government and regard GM food as totally safe? Whose advice do we follow? Which "research" do we accept? Can we trust the regulatory frameworks? Is the public correct to be concerned about the safety of GM foods?
These are complex questions, not amenable to simple "yes" and "no" answers. But they do tell us something very important about the nature of the GM food controversy. It involves every segment of society: science, business, government, the public - everyone has a stake in genetic engineering. And they all have their own vested interests to pursue as well as their own particular perspective on its significance. We are thus confronted with an issue where facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions rather urgent. The only way forward is to recognise that this is where we are at. So, welcome to postnormal science.
In normal science - that is, our conventional understanding of science - we relied upon empirical data to lead us to true conclusions. Uncertainties were tamed by the reduction of complex systems to their simple atomic elements and values were, on the whole, irrelevant. Science was limited to the laboratory and its claims to truth and virtue gave us confidence in its ability to take us on a never-ending road to progress. Scientific experts dispensed immutable truths and we all looked up to them and took their advice. Of course it was never as simple as that; but that's what we believed as long as the problems we encountered could be solved to the satisfaction of all.
But the world has changed. The threat of unknown, irreversible and potentially dangerous developments in science means that science cannot be left to the scientists any more. Nowadays, scientists do not provide us with indisputable facts but with contested opinions. Uncertainty and ignorance of risks are pervasive. Every advance has a hazardous underbelly. Thus science cannot remain aloof from society; it must now join the polity.
That's exactly what postnormal science is all about. It recognises uncertainty and a plurality of competing but legitimate perspectives. In postnormal science, quality replaces truth as the organising principle and science is transformed into a dialogue between stakeholders. The task now is no longer one of accredited scientific experts discovering "true facts" for the determination of "good policies". Rather, scientists participate in the dialogue with the housewife, the patient, the civil servant, the businessman and the investigative journalist to assess the quality of the scientific results in the context of real life. The conventional peer community of scientists is replaced with an extended peer community, and facts become extended facts, where personal experience, citizens' concerns and scientific inform- ation come together to provide a more holistic perspective on science policy issues. In this way, postnormal science reconciles science with societal trends and liberates it from the exclusive possession of a technocratic elite.
The concept of postnormal science is the brainchild of Jerry Ravetz and Silvio Funtowicz. When I first encountered the ideas of these two radical philosophers of science over a decade ago, I was sceptical about their future. This scepticism was based on the observation that movements critical of science have always been hampered by the contradiction that science seemed overwhelmingly and essentially beneficial. Criticisms on any but the narrowest of fronts have been dismissed as Luddism or anti-science. However broadly based were the objections to nuclear weapons, civil nuclear power or particular forms of pollution, it was still politically impossible to raise the question of whether science itself had to be reformed. The simple answer was that science "worked" in delivering the consumers' version of the good life in ever-increasing measures. But the GM food controversy, the BSE controversy before it and the looming spectacle of human cloning has changed all that.
We now know that science does not always work. Citizens have been given a public demonstration that all work done in the name of science, be it research, development or policy advice, is selected, shaped, applied or inhibited, interpreted, full of contradictions and often concealed. People are now ready to believe that science itself needs to be reformed. The first step towards postnormal science was taken a couple of weeks ago when the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee published its report on the role of science advice in regulating GM crops. It recommended that scientific advisory committees should not just include qualified experts but also "other, not necessarily scientific, disciplines", including "lay members". Such a committee of the extended peer community would "ensure that the evidence is subjected to a sufficiently questioning review from a wide-ranging set of viewpoints". Where one select committee leads, others will follow. Postnormal science is set to be the future of science.
Ziauddin Sardar's "Introducing Chaos" is published by Icon Books, £8.99
