1962) and applied and professional consultancy work rooted in that paradigm is sometimes inadequate, some researchers and practitioners have attempted to find other pragmatic ways to deal with complex problematic situations. In particular, Funtowicz and Ravetz describe a ‘post-normal’ approach (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993, 1994a,b, 2003, 2018) that is relevant to ecohealth (see Table 4.1).
Table 4.1. A comparison of the normal applied, professional consultancy and post-normal science (PNS) approaches to environmental problem concerns. From Kay et al. (1999), reprinted with permission.
| Normal applied science | Conventional professional consultancy | PNS and inquiry |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | ||
| Certainty | Uncertainty (reducible in principle, we lack knowledge) | Uncertainty (irreducible in principle) |
| Low stakes | Intermediate stakes | High stakes |
| Facts: truth found | Solution: client happy, society is satisfied | Resolution: a course of action is chosen |
| Results | ||
| Hard | Try to be hard | Soft |
| Predictable | Error reduced to an acceptable level | Unpredictability a fact of life |
| Quantitative | Quantitative | Quantitative + Qualitative |
| In the service of | ||
| Truth | Client in a societal institutional framework | Decision makers, policy, public |
| Judgement of results | ||
| Truth accepted | No mistakes (i.e. surprises) | Quality of process, integrity |
| Peer review | Holds up in court, client happy | Holds up to public scrutiny, move forward |
| Mode of inquiry | ||
| Hypothesis testing | Problem solving | Ecosystem approach |
| Pursuit of truth | Mission and product oriented | Pursuit of understanding |
| Reductionism | – | Holarchic |
| Analysis | Analysis + Design | Analysis + Design + Synthesis |
| Explanations | ||
| Linear cause and effect | Non-linear, negative feedback | Negative + Positive feedback, autocatalysis, morphogenic causal loops |
| Mechanistic | Mechanistic + Cybernetic | Synergistic, emergence |
| Stability | Control, homeostasis | Change, evolution, ∞ cycles |
| Efficiency | – | Efficiency + Adaptation |
| Extremum principles | – | Local optimum, trade-offs |
| Laws | – | Propensities and constraints |
| Forensics | ||
| Fact | Interpretation | Testimony |
| Characteristics | ||
| Objective, one correct view | Subjective, client-consultant view | Subjective, plural |
| Value free | Limited values | Ethical, integrity |
| Predictive management | Control management | Anticipatory + Adaptive management |
| Physics | Engineering | Ecological economics |
Post-normal science (PNS) is a way of doing policy-related science that is appropriate for cases where ‘facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent’ (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1994b). PNS provides a basis for accommodating knowledge provided from multiple perspectives of diverse stakeholders in complex situations. PNS thus offers a philosophical rational for health-related activities where One Health is invoked as a goal and/or ecohealth is chosen as an approach.
For One Health practitioners, this means that the health outcomes selected, and the manner in which they are addressed, become part of the process of investigation. For example, livestock are valued in many different ways, many of them non-economic (Zinsstag et al., Chapter 2, this volume). Cattle, for instance, are valued differently by Maasai in East Africa, Hindus from India, and feedlot owners exporting beef from the USA. Simple appeals to cost–benefit analyses to arrive at strategies for controlling diseases are not always helpful or sufficient. Even within a broad economic perspective, we must ask whether the benefits and costs accrue differently to smallholders, corporations, communities, trading partners and the like. PNS, unlike what has been called normal science, does not argue that there is a single ‘objective’ view of a complex reality that transcends all the others. Conventional scientists contribute a great deal to the overall body of knowledge, but their view does not necessarily negate or subject others. Our understanding of the world emerges from multiple, sometimes conflicting, perspectives, and is characterized by complex uncertainties.
In order to prevent this openness to multiple perspectives from degenerating into a free-for-all mixture of hard-won evidence, misinformation and fantasy,
