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

该项目将加州大学伯克利分校的社会科学和自然科学教师带入一个比较分析，探讨如何改进耦合人类和自然系统模型的使用和呈现。 由于没有一个单一的模型以可管理的方式代表整个复杂性，科学和公众的理解必须通过从强调复杂系统不同部分的不同模型中“拼凑”结果来实现。 这种“拼凑”的过程目前效果不太好。 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矛盾的见解，或具有相互矛盾的政策含义的信息，对此没有科学的解决办法。 在这种情况下，不同的政治和经济利益集团发现，强调来自特定模型的选择性信息是有利的。 该项目将探讨是否可以通过建立科学和公共标准等方式，改进来自不同模型的信息交流过程。 还将考虑使用“科学陪审团”等新机构的可能性，以及如何修改科学家的培训以减少这一问题。 该项目促进了新方法的发展及其应用;案例研究的比较;在一个将包括科学哲学家和研究生的讲习班上进行认真、公开的讨论;以及为准备从事科学和政策工作的研究生起草一本教科书。人们现在意识到，人类活动的总体水平，特别是某些类型的活动，对全球环境造成的、基本上是不可逆转的影响。 然而，研究这些影响的科学家们很难解决人类和自然系统之间耦合的复杂性。 科学内部的这些困难随着科学家试图向公众传达他们所知道的东西而变得更加严重，而不同的公众根据他们的经济和政治利益有选择地倾听。 沟通问题使科学家很难将他们的知识转化为有效的政策。 该项目探讨如何通过制定关于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财政年度环境中生物复杂性特别竞赛的一个奖项，重点是耦合自然和人类系统的动力学。

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.