Our modern (Western) civilisation is based on science and, in particular, on quantitative evidence used as a privileged input to governance.  As science-related policy issues have come to be recognised as complex and more inherently difficult of solution, the conception of the role of science and of quantitative evidence has also developed and matured.  

Today, when science is deployed in the policy context, we are aware of the possibility that facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent. In the light of this new understanding, we can identify several conceptual models of the relation between science and decision-making in governance processes.  We trace their evolution through a deepening appreciation of the process of the use of science in policy with special attention to the role of uncertainty.

Speaker: Professor Silvio Funtowicz, Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen.

This plenary presenation is free and open to all!