The No-Nonsense Guide to Science

The No-Nonsense Guide to Science
Cover of the first edition
Author Jerome Ravetz
Country United States
Language English
Subject Science
Publisher New Internationalist
Publication date
 2006
Media type Print
Pages 144
ISBN 1904456464

The No-Nonsense Guide to Science is a 2006 book by the philosopher Jerome Ravetz, one of the fathers of Post-normal science, in which the author offers a critical account of techno-science and argues for a deeper appreciation of uncertainty and ignorance in scientific knowledge and for a need for citizens’ participation in the appraisal of science when this is used in support or relation to policy.


Summary

Ravetz offers elements of history of science and of science and technology studies and puts them in the perspective of modern circumstances when science is increasingly called to provide guidance on human affairs and adjudicate policy disputes while at the same time being a major engine of change.

He revisits many of the themes of Ravetz's major works such as his Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems (1971) and The Merger of Knowledge with Power (1990), as well as the tropes of Post-normal science. He repeats in this work his warnings against the "self-destructive tendencies of mega science" and the neglect of ignorance: "Curing the ignorance of ignorance is not merely a concern of enlightened educators. It is vitally important for science and survival." Like most of Ravetz's production this works takes on a new relevance in the context of the present science's crisis.

Reviews

Jonathan Latham wrote that the book "focuses on what we can learn from the ongoing revision of this history. It argues that science was never objective or disinterested but that in the past this mattered relatively little since science was relatively powerless and less wedded to establishment interests. […] Ravetz offers the democratisation of science as a necessary and realistic antidote to the hubris and arrogance of science."[1]

References

  1. ↑ Jonathan Latham (The Bioscience Resource Project), Review of: The No-Nonsense Guide to Science by Jerome Ravetz, June 4, 2008, The Independent Science News.
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