BE/CNH: Responding to the Challenges of Human-Natural System Complexity: Assuring the Quality of Models, Improving the Presentation of Findings, and Designing New Institutions

这个项目将加州大学伯克利分校的社会科学和自然科学的教师带入一个比较分析，研究如何改进人类和自然系统耦合模型的使用和呈现。由于没有单一的模型以可管理的方式代表全部的复杂性，科学和公众的理解都必须通过“拼凑”来自不同模型的发现，这些模型强调复杂系统的不同部分。这种“拼凑”的过程目前并不是很有效。例如，不同学科的科学家之间以及科学家与公众之间存在沟通障碍。在某些情况下，不同的模型提供了相互冲突的见解，或者具有相互冲突的政策含义的信息，对此没有科学的解决方案。在这种情况下，不同的政治和经济利益发现强调来自特定模型的选择性信息是有利的。该项目将探索是否可以通过建立科学和公共标准来改进来自不同模型的信息交流过程。还将考虑使用诸如“科学陪审团”之类的新机构的可能性，以及如何修改科学家的培训以减少这个问题。这个项目促进了新方法的发展和应用；案例研究的比较；在包括科学哲学家和研究生的研讨会上进行严肃、公开的讨论；为准备在科学和政策领域工作的研究生起草一本教科书。人们现在意识到，总体水平，特别是某些类型的人类活动正在对全球环境产生深刻的，而且在很大程度上是不可逆转的影响。然而，研究这些影响的科学家很难处理人类和自然系统之间耦合的复杂性。当科学家试图向公众传达他们所知道的东西，而不同的公众根据他们的经济和政治利益有选择地倾听时，这些科学内部的困难就会被放大。沟通问题使得科学家很难将他们所知道的转化为有效的政策。本项目探讨了如何通过制定有关复杂系统的科学信息的表述标准、培训科学家和发展将科学信息与公众联系起来的新机构来减少这些困难。该项目是2001财年环境生物复杂性特别竞赛颁发的奖项，重点关注自然和人类系统耦合的动力学。

This project brings faculty from the social and natural sciences at the University of California at Berkeley into a comparative analysis of how the use and presentation of models of coupled human and natural systems can be improved. With no single model representing the full complexity in a manageable way, both scientific and public understanding must come through "piecing together" findings from separate models that emphasize different parts of complex systems. This process of "piecing together" is currently not working very well. There are, for example, communication barriers between scientists of different disciplines as well as between scientists and the public. In some cases, different models provide conflicting insights, or information with conflicting policy implications, for which there is no scientific resolution. In such cases, different political and economic interests find it advantageous to emphasize selective information from particular models. This project will explore whether the process of communicating information from disparate models might be improved, for example, through the establishment of scientific and public standards. The possibilities for using new institutions such as "science juries" also will be considered, as well as how the training of scientists could be modified to reduce the problem. This project facilitates the development of new approaches and their application; the comparison of case studies; serious, open discussion in a workshop that will include philosophers of science and graduate students; and the drafting of a textbook for graduate students who are preparing to work at the interface of science and policy.People are now aware that the overall level and especially some types of human activity are having profound, and largely irreversible, effects on the global environment. Scientists who study these effects, however, are having difficulty grappling with the complexity of the couplings between human and natural systems. These difficulties that are internal to science become amplified as scientists try to communicate what they know to the public, and different public's listen selectively according to their economic and political interests. Communication problems make it very difficult to transform what scientists do know into effective policy. This project explores ways that these difficulties can be reduced through standards for the presentation of scientific information about complex systems, the training of scientists, and the development of new institutions for connecting scientific information to the public. This project is an award emanating from the FY2001 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.