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Ignorance and Surprise by Matthias Gross
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Ignorance and Surprise

Science, Society, and Ecological Design

Science, Society, and Ecological Design

By Matthias Gross

By Matthias Gross

By Matthias Gross

By Matthias Gross

Best Seller

Part of Inside Technology

Part of Inside Technology

Paperback $40.00

Aug 03, 2021 | ISBN 9780262543989

Ebook $28.99

May 07, 2010 | ISBN 9780262265614

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    Ignorance and Surprise by Matthias Gross
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    May 07, 2010 | ISBN 9780262265614

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    About Ignorance and Surprise

    The relationship between ignorance and surprise and a conceptual framework for dealing with the unexpected, as seen in ecological design projects.

    Ignorance and surprise belong together: surprises can make people aware of their own ignorance. And yet, perhaps paradoxically, a surprising event in scientific research—one that defies prediction or risk assessment—is often a window to new and unexpected knowledge. In this book, Matthias Gross examines the relationship between ignorance and surprise, proposing a conceptual framework for handling the unexpected and offering case studies of ecological design that demonstrate the advantages of allowing for surprises and including ignorance in the design and negotiation processes.
     
    Gross draws on classical and contemporary sociological accounts of ignorance and surprise in science and ecology and integrates these with the idea of experiment in society. He develops a notion of how unexpected occurrences can be incorporated into a model of scientific and technological development that includes the experimental handling of surprises. Gross discusses different projects in ecological design, including Chicago’s restoration of the shoreline of Lake Michigan and Germany’s revitalization of brownfields near Leipzig. These cases show how ignorance and surprise can successfully play out in ecological design projects, and how the acknowledgment of the unknown can become a part of decision making. The appropriation of surprises can lead to robust design strategies.
     
    Ecological design, Gross argues, is neither a linear process of master planning nor a process of trial and error but a carefully coordinated process of dealing with unexpected turns by means of experimental practice.

    About Ignorance and Surprise

    The relationship between ignorance and surprise and a conceptual framework for dealing with the unexpected, as seen in ecological design projects.

    Ignorance and surprise belong together: surprises can make people aware of their own ignorance. And yet, perhaps paradoxically, a surprising event in scientific research—one that defies prediction or risk assessment—is often a window to new and unexpected knowledge. In this book, Matthias Gross examines the relationship between ignorance and surprise, proposing a conceptual framework for handling the unexpected and offering case studies of ecological design that demonstrate the advantages of allowing for surprises and including ignorance in the design and negotiation processes.

    Gross draws on classical and contemporary sociological accounts of ignorance and surprise in science and ecology and integrates these with the idea of experiment in society. He develops a notion of how unexpected occurrences can be incorporated into a model of scientific and technological development that includes the experimental handling of surprises. Gross discusses different projects in ecological design, including Chicago’s restoration of the shoreline of Lake Michigan and Germany’s revitalization of brownfields near Leipzig. These cases show how ignorance and surprise can successfully play out in ecological design projects, and how the acknowledgment of the unknown can become a part of decision making. The appropriation of surprises can lead to robust design strategies.

    Ecological design, Gross argues, is neither a linear process of master planning nor a process of trial and error but a carefully coordinated process of dealing with unexpected turns by means of experimental practice.

    Product Details

    Category: Science & Technology

    Paperback | $40.00
    Published by The MIT Press
    Aug 03, 2021 | 256 Pages | 6 x 9 | ISBN 9780262543989

    Category: Science & Technology

    Ebook | $28.99
    Published by The MIT Press
    May 07, 2010 | 256 Pages | 6 x 9 | ISBN 9780262265614

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    Praise

    Gross’ book is an excellent contribution to the analytical terrain of uncertainty in studies of science-society relations and will bode well for scholars interested in expanded societal membership in the production of knowledge.—Metascience—

    [A]n excellent historiography of social science philosophies of learning.

    —International Social Science Review—

    What kinds of science will help us navigate the Anthropocene? Matthias Gross’s book takes an important step toward answering that question.

    —Science as Culture—

    A nicely focused approach to joining theory and practice for shaping the environment for human use.

    —Building Research & Information—

    Offers an important postnormal model of a science that counters the absolute pronouncements and rhetoric of a traditional science that fears ignorance and surprise, but that at the same time preserves the best parts of the scientific enterprise…Highly recommended.

    —Choice—

    Table Of Contents

    List of Figures and Tables ix
    Acknowledgments xi
    1 Introduction: Brave the Unknown 1
    Landscapes, Precaution, and Experiment 2
    Objectives 6
    Part I Concepts
    2 Experiments and Surprises: Classical and Contemporary
    Perspectives 13
    Knowledge Societies and the Inevitability of Surprises 14
    The Transdisciplinarity of Ecological Restoration 19
    New Modes of Experimental Knowledge Production 25
    Public Experiments: Producing Surprise and (Occasional) Delight 29
    Toward an Empirically Grounded Typology of Surprises 34
    New Nature, New Surprises: Return of an Extinct Carnivore 44
    3 Knowledge Production and the Recurrence of Ignorance 49
    Knowledge in a Sea of Ignorance 50
    Nescience, Ignorance, and Nonknowledge 53
    Studying the Other Side of Knowledge 59
    Dynamics of the Unknown 67
    More Questions than Answers: The Case of Malaria Control 71
    Toward the Experimental Integration of Ignorance and Surprise 75
    Part II Practice
    4 Ecological Restoration and Experimental Learning 83
    Ecology in Society: The Shifting Boundaries of Ecological Restoration 84
    New Land: Shaping the Chicago Shoreline 91
    viii Contents
    Public Participation and Controversies over “ Real ”Nature 95
    Surprises Appropriated: Native Birds, Nonnative Bushes, and the Arrival of Baby
    Dunes 99
    Maintaining Integrity in the Face of Surprises 106
    Aligning Research and Heterogeneous Social Goals 109
    Robust Restoration Strategies through Recursive Practice 114
     5 Postindustrial Landscapes as Laboratories of Change 121
     Europe ’ s Largest Landscape Construction Site 122
    The Design of a Lake District: New Nature in Postmining Landscapes 128
    Anticipated Acidifi cation and Surprising Heavy Metals 134
    Fleeing Forward: Fast Flooding as Acting in the Face of Nonknowledge 140
    Trust and Nonknowledge: Research in the Context of Its Application 143
    Further into the Unknown: Rising Water, Shrinking Population 149
    The Challenge of Keeping Surprises Surprising 155
    Part III Outlook
     6 Welcome Surprises and New Edifi ces of Knowledge 165
    Modernity and the Unanticipated Consequences of Progress 166
    Research as Application: Toward an Experimental Knowledge Society 168
    Perspective: Surprises as Opportunity, Nonknowledge as a Working Base 178
     Notes 183
     References 197
     Index 229

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