Jerome Ravetz
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Jerome Ravetz (1929 - ) is an environmental consultant and professor of philosophy of science best known for his books challenging the assumptions of scientific objectivity, discussing the science wars and post-normal science.
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[edit] Biography
After World War II, the United States was swept into a period of anti-communist McCarthyism. As an undergraduate Ravetz became a member of the American Communist Party and so in 1950 he decided to flee to England as a political refugee. He has been a British citizen since 1961. His passport was confiscated and he was unable to return to the USA until 1978, when the Carter Administration gave general amnesty forVietnam war protesters among others.
Ravetz received a BA from Swarthmore College in 1950 and a PhD in mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge University as a Fulbright Scholar in 1954. He joined the faculty of Leeds University in 1957 where he taught history and philosophy of science. In 1971. he published Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems which was one of the earliest salvos of the science wars to challenge the assumption of scientific objectivity.
From 1977 to 1978, he was a member of the Genetic Manipulation Advisory Group. He co-authored Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy with Silvio Funtowicz in 1991 and authored Cyberfutrues: Culture and Politics on the Information Superhighway in 1996.
Currently Ravetz is an independent scholar and self-employed consultant, working mainly on problems of the management of uncertainty in risks and environmental issues. Ravetz holds a position as Associate Fellow at the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at the University of Oxford.
[edit] Books
- Ravetz, Jerome R. (1979). Scientific knowledge and its social problems. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0195197216.
- Ravetz, Jerome R. (1990). The merger of knowledge with power: essays in critical science. London [England]: Mansell. ISBN 0720120217.
- Ravetz, Jerome R.; Funtowicz, Silvio O. (1990). Uncertainty and quality in science for policy. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 0792307992.
- Ravetz, Jerome R.; Sardar, Ziauddin (1996). Cyberfutures: culture and politics on the information superhighway. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 081478058X.
[edit] Quotes
"Wherever there's a system, there's a racket to beat it." - Jerome Rabitz
