Limnology and the post-normal imperative: an African perspective

摘要

An implicit and almost universal assumption of discussions published in professional and semi-popular scientific journals is that the problem under discussion has a technical solution. A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.” HARDIN 1968 Although it is 40 years since Hardin wrote these words, when I consider the redefinition of limnology they seem as applicable today as they where back then. Despite the undisputable fact that great strides have been made across the spectrum of limnology during the tenure of the International Society for Theoretical and Applied Limnology (SIL), the continued poor state of the global water resources presents a serious “problem” to humanity. The question for us is, “To what extent does limnology as a discipline, and particularly limnology as portrayed by the outputs of SI L, currently engage the challenge?” And, in deference to Hardin, to what extent are the technical solutions we offer defined by, or tempered with, human values? A quick search through the contents pages of the Proceedings of the 29~(th) SIL Congress suggests that despite being a society of “theoretical and applied limnology,” less than 2% of papers struck me as “theoretical” and about 10% as “applied,” almost all of which were aimed at achieving a “technical solution” to a problem defined in scientific terms. Only some 20% of the titles suggested a systems perspective of the subject material while the other 80% were of empirical studies, with single species, individual process, or geographically specific focus. Titles conspicuously lacked terms such as society, stakeholder, scale, decision making, sustainability, or even management, that express many of the current themes at the forefront of modern science of natural resources. I was also left with the overwhelming impression of a science dominated by the normal (Kum: 1970 hypothetico-deductive, falsification methodology of the past century with little recognition of recent critiques. As flawed as such a search of titles might be, it suggests some grounds for exploring the redefinition of theoretical and applied limnology, at least that which dominates the agenda of the triennial conference held by the flagship-society we wish to redefine. Limnology does not stand alone amongst the sciences in its need for redefinition. In fact, there is deep concern in some quarters that science as a whole is not responding adequately to the challenges of our times. There have been a number of calls to revisit the dominance and fundamentals of the falsification, or null hypothesis significance testing approach (CARVER 1978, COHEN 1994, PICKETT et al. 1994, JOHNSON 1999) and for the development of a new relationship between science and society ( LUBCHENCO 1997, GALLOPIN et al. 2001, ROGERS 2006). On the one hand, publication titles such as "The insignificance of significance testing" (JOHNSON 1999) and "The fall of the null-hypothesis ..." (Gummy et al. 2001) rattle in the hallowed halls of ecological science. On the other, scientists and decision makers concerned with long term sustainability assert that no generally accepted model effectively embraces the integrated research of physical, biological and human dimensions of real world problems (GALLOPIN et al. 2001). There is every reason to accept that these critiques apply as much to limnology as they do to other disciplines of the natural sciences. After all, we know that the state of the world's aquatic ecosystems and water resources is declining, despite the sincere and concerted effort of freshwater scientists. So we might ask to what degree is our inherited science part of the problem, and how could it be modified to become part of the solution?