Lecture 3: Different approaches to hypotheses testing and scientific adaptive management

Presentation

• Summary of discussion from last week
  • paradigmatic science is efficient
  • paradigm shifts are inevitable but pose a risk for scientists
  • who do we expect to take that risk
  • the new paradigm shift might be that values are being incorporated/embedded into science through the whole cycle
• Hypotheses generation and testing
  • from Alexander et al
    • NHT
    • I-T
    • Bayesian
  • from complexity studies - Josh will explain how to use multi-agent simulations to generate hypotheses
• Scientific Adaptive Management
  • problem based science
  • 3 tenets
    • relies only on experience
    • multi-scales
    • place sensitive
  • link to sustainability on a philosophical level
  • decision support
    • precautionary principle
    • "safe-minimum standard" (SMS) - "Save the resource, provided the costs of doing so are bearable" -
  • Norton - SAM

Activities

Discuss several claims that came up in the presentation of Norton's view of SAM

"The only languages known that are rich enough for this purpose are ordinary languages, languages that have evolved in real communities with real problems, real objectives, and real attempts to cooperate. The language of adaptive management, accordingly, must be ordinary language as it has evolved in specific, communities facing problems and cherishing goals."

and "Language, as it functions in the service of communication within real communities, is constrained by the common experiences of the other members. "

Highlights the value of environmental education for adolescents (Inglehart - World values Survey).

Does this block communication between different cultures or societies?

Reliance on experts in the decision making process is anti-democratic.

("The Remains of the Day", Ishiguro)

"One could argue, ..., that a more cooperative structure and process at EPA, one of the most contentioius and politicized of all federal agencies, would go a long way toward reducing partisanship and fractured politics in the country."

<!-- related to the claim that good environmental managment can lead to good nationalgovernance -->

Portland Sister City example: Russia, China, 2005 and the benzene spill into the Amur river on the Khabarovsk

counter examples - poor uses of resources is a common feature of bad governments

Follow-up notes

from the discussion