THE CUNNING OF UNCERTAINTY
Book ID/图书代码： 10963015B79918
English Summary/英文概要： Uncertainty is interwoven into human existence. It is a powerful incentive in the search for knowledge and an inherent component of scientific research. We have developed many ways of coping with uncertainty. We make promises, manage risks and make predictions to try to clear the mists and predict ahead. But the future is inherently uncertain – and the mist that shrouds our path an inherent part of our journey. The burning question is whether our societies can face up to uncertainty, learn to embrace it and whether we can open up to a constantly evolving future.
In this new book, Helga Nowotny shows how research can thrive at the cusp of uncertainty. Science, she argues, can eventually transform uncertainty into certainty, but into certainty which remains always provisional.
Uncertainty is never completely static. It is constantly evolving. It encompasses geological time scales and, at the level of human experience, split–second changes as cells divide. Life and death decisions are taken in the blink of the eye, while human interactions with the natural environment may reveal their impact over millennia.
Uncertainty is cunning. It appears at unexpected moments, it shuns the straight line, takes the oblique route and sometimes the unexpected short–cut. As we acknowledge the cunning of uncertainty, its threats retreat. We accept that any scientific inquiry must produce results that are provisional and uncertain. This message is vital for politicians and policy–makers: do not be tempted by small, short–term, controllable gains to the exclusion of uncertain, high–gain opportunities.
Wide–ranging in its use of examples and enriched by the author s experience as President of the European Research Council, one of the world s leading funding organisations for fundamental research. The Cunning of Uncertainty is a must–read for students and scholars of all disciplines, politicians, policy–makers and anyone concerned with the fundamental role of knowledge and science in our societies today.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 人类的生存充满了不确定性。在科学研究探索知识时，不确定性是一个强大的动力和内在组成部分。人类已经有各种方法来应对不确定性。我们做出承诺，管理风险，并作出预测，这些都是为了看清、预测未来。但未来就是不确定的，笼罩我们前进道路的那层薄雾也是我们未来旅途的一部分。问题在于我们的社会是否能够直面那些不确定、学会接受不确定性，以及我们是否可以开辟一个不断发展的未来。
在本书中，Helga Nowotny展示了在不确定的环境下如何进行研究。她认为科学最终能够将不确定转为确定，虽然确定的状态可能稍纵即逝。
不确定性并非完全静止。这个状态在不断发展，无论是从地质时间尺度、人类的经验而言，每个瞬间都在变化。当人类和自然环境互相作用时，一眨眼的功夫做出的决定可能影响生死，但这个影响或许需要几千年才能显现。
不确定性可以说是狡猾的。它会在意想不到的时刻出现，遮蔽达成目标的直线，引领我们走上歧路，虽然有时歧路最终也可能变成捷径。我们必须承认任何科学研究获得的成果其实都是暂时的、不确定的。这个信息对于政客和制定政策的人很有用：不要被短期的、微小的可控收益诱惑而抛弃了不确定但高收益的机会。
本书广泛使用实例，适用于所有关心知识和科学的意义的人。(LYR)
Awards/获奖情况：“迅速发展的技术与人类行为在很多无法预测的方面发生着相互影响。如何对待周围的不确定性将不可避免地影响到生活的方方面面。在这本发人深省的书中，Helga Nowotny教授对于不确定性的独特视角来源于她作为一个学者、政策制定者以及研究管理人员的丰富经验。”《卡内基•梅隆大学校长，Subra Suresh》
"With rapid advances in technology intersecting with human behavior in unpredictable ways, how we approach issues surrounding uncertainty will inevitably impact every aspect of life. In this thought–provoking book, Professor Helga Nowotny brings unique perspectives on uncertainty from her extensive background as a scholar, policy maker and research administrator."
Subra Suresh, President, Carnegie Mellon University
"This brilliant new book confirms Helga Nowotny as the voice of social science in an initially unsympathetic milieu, and its intellectual champion in her insistence that without understandings of, and through, society, understandings of, and through, science cannot flourish."
Marilyn Strathern, Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge
About the Author/作者介绍： Helga Nowotny是欧洲研究理事会前主席（2010-2013），瑞士联邦理工学院苏黎世校区社会科学研究名誉教授。
Helga Nowotny is former President of the European Research Council (2010–2013) and Professor Emeritus of Social Studies of Science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich.
Format:HARDCOVER
Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE
Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：
原文第一章内容：暂无
手稿：暂无
大纲：暂无