Volatility

Here is my first question: Once you do the best possible science that you can do, how does it get translated into other forms of actions including policy, negotiations, and private corporations?

Here it is, my new guiding question: How do facts get transformed to give science volatility?

Here is another question: What does that mean????

My new question has arisen out of my desire to incorporate what I have been learning in Environmental Theory into my thesis work. I want to include “Model 2” (mentioned in my last post) but need to find a way to do it productively. This question, while fascinating and even somewhat perturbing, is not necessarily answerable through empirical research.

Let’s break down the question into some questions that are using the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) as a case study.

How do facts…

This question is one that relates back to epistemic communities, those groups who are saying what is and what is not fact. In the case of the KBRA, I have to find out what the basic facts are, which I have luckily already done, and figure out who says they are indeed fact and what those facts are based off of. As far as science communication, a good question could be How do people think about the KBRA and conceptualize it? Possible methodologies for this may include doing some sort of discourse analysis (I really need to learn more about discourse analysis).

…get transformed…

Transformed is a powerful word. I chose to use the word transformed over the word translated because I believe that “transformed” better encapsulates the ideas the Model 2 depicts while “translated” correlates more with Model 1. “Transformed” implies a process, a give and take that is fluid and powerful. A clearer and possibly more straightforward way to ask this question is What processes and actors engage in these facts to affect these transformations?

…to give science volatility?

Volatility! Volatility? Why volatility? Volatility replaces the word action. Volatility has a temporal element and gets at not only facts being transformed, but also the whole scientific discourse being transformed. A different way to ask this is How do the institutions of science (those who created fact) respond to challenges and multiple interpretations of that fact? Here, the question highlights the process instead of just looking at this idea of transformation as a linear concept, it is now a web or even a loop.