**Two Cultures, Multiple Theoretical Perspectives: The Problem of Integration of Natural and Social Sciences in Earth System Research**

Diógenes S. Alves *National Institute for Space Research (INPE) Brazil* 

## **1. Introduction**

The integration of natural and social sciences has been recognized as a key aspect of Earth System (E.S.) research, a cross-disciplinary field involving the study of the geosphere, the biosphere, and society (IGBP, 2006; Leemans et al., 2009; Pfeiffer, 2008; Reid et al., 2010; Young, 2008). Because of societal and political correlates between environmental change and socio-economic development, the study of the Earth System has been increasingly ascribed social and political dimensions emphasizing the need for greater collaboration between the social and natural sciences (Beven, 2011; Kates et al., 2001; Leemans et al., 2009; Reid et al., 2010; Saloranta, 2001; Shackley et al., 1998).

The problem of inter-disciplinary articulation between the social and natural sciences is not specific to E.S. research, and its challenges can be traced back to the very origins of the notions of science and social science (e.g. Comte, 1830-1842; de Alvarenga et al., 2011; Latour, 2000, 2004). To a degree, these challenges could be explained in terms of the increasing gulf between two cultures – those of the sciences and the humanities – as suggested by C.P. Snow (1905-1980) in an instigating essay (Snow, 1990 [1959]), due to the high specialization in science and education, and, not less important, to a "tendency to let our social forms to crystallise" (Snow, 1990: 172). More to the point, the increasing importance attributed to the problem has motivated a growing number of analyses concerning the high level of specialization and fragmentation of science and university education (e.g. de Alvarenga et al., 2011; Moraes, 2005; Snow, 1990), but also the societal and political questions concerning research agendas (e.g. Alves, 2008; Kates et al., 2001; Latour, 2000, 2004; Schor, 2008), the disparities between developed and developing countries not just in affluence level, but also in research capacity (Kates et al, 2001; Pfeiffer, 2008; Schor, 2008), and, finally, from a more methodological point of view, the multiplicity of theoreticomethodological perspectives admitted by the social sciences (e.g. de Alvarenga et al., 2011; Floriani et al, 2011; Giddens, 2001; Leis, 2011; Moraes, 2005; Oliveira Filho, 1976; Raynaut & Zanoni, 2011; Weffort, 2006).

Yet, in the E.S. field the problem of bringing together social and natural sciences has been a permanent and still unresolved challenge (Alves et al., 2007; Alves, 2008; Geoghegan et al.,

Two Cultures, Multiple Theoretical Perspectives:

The Problem of Integration of Natural and Social Sciences in Earth System Research 5

The chapter is organized in three major sections: the first presents an introductory, brief review of the problem of inter-disciplinary articulation and the importance of G.S.T. as a tool for it, the second reassesses the concept of method in the natural and the social sciences, and postulates how the problem of the emergence of meaning of environmental change can be explained within the G.S.T. framework, and the last section examines the workings of the IPCC, postulating the emergence of the ideas of detection and attribution of climate change, and of emission scenarios as shared concepts between the social world and science, that

The question concerning the articulation of scientific knowledge produced by different disciplines has relevance not only for E.S. studies, and includes many different aspects such as the question about the unity of science, the processes leading to disciplinary fragmentation, epistemological differences among sciences, and the varied understandings of the concept of inter-disciplinarity (e.g. Aubin & Dalmedico, 2002; de Alvarenga et al, 2011; Jollivet & Legay, 2005; Jordi, 2010; Leis, 2011; Nowotny et al, 2003; Poincaré, 1968

The growing importance of this question can be perceived, in particular, following the great achievements of science in the late XVIII and early XIX centuries, and the multiplication of scientific disciplines that started at that time, including the foundation of what would become sociology. In addition to the question of understanding how scientific knowledge could be achieved – which would include enquiries on the nature of scientific knowledge and method - it would be proposed that such knowledge would provide a basis to make society more just and, not less important, to evade social crises such as those of the time of

One of the key conceptions at that time, one that followed the Galilean tradition, but also reflected new scientific advances in the domains of physics and chemistry, postulated a unifying, analytical view of the world provided by mathematics, as illustrated by the

"We ought [...] to look at the present state of universe as the effect of its previous state, and as the cause of the following one. An intelligence which, for a given moment, would know all the forces animating nature, and the conditions of the beings composing it, if furthermore it would be as immense as to analyze these data, would hold together in the same one formula the movements of the largest bodies in the universe, and those of the lightest atom: nothing would be uncertain for it, and the

future as the past, would be before its eyes" 3 (Laplace, 1825: 3-4; my translation) At about the same time, Auguste Comte (1798-1857) saw the construction of scientific knowledge as needing a more complex logico-theoretical framework. For him, Laplace's

3"*Nous devons [...] envisager l'état présent de l'univers, comme l'effet de son état antérieur, et comme la cause de celui qui va lui suivre. Une intelligence qui pour un instant donné, connaitrait toutes les forces dont la nature est animée, et la situation respective des êtres qui la composent, si d'ailleurs elle était assez vaste pour soumettre ces données à l'analyse, embrasserait dans la même formule les mouvements des plus grands corps de l'univers et ceux du plus léger atome: rien ne serait incertain pour elle, et l' avenir comme le passé, serait présent à ses yeux."* 

helped the social world to elucidate to itself what climate change might mean.

**2. On inter-disciplinary articulation and general systems theory** 

[1902]; Raynaut & Zanoni, 2011; Schor, 2008; von Bertallanffy, 1950).

proposition made by the mathematician Marquis de Laplace (1749-1827):

**2.1 A brief account of inter-disciplinary articulation** 

the French Revolution.

(Laplace, 1825: 3-4)

1998; Hick et al., 2010; Liverman & Cuesta, 2008), despite its recognized central relevance for E.S. research programs (e.g. Hogan & Tolmasquim, 2001; IGBP , 2006; Leemans et al., 2009; Reid et al., 2010; Young, 2008). In this field, inter-disciplinary articulation is of great interest and importance specially due to the challenges of postulating societal responses to environmental changes attributed to society itself and addressing the considerable level of uncertainty in detecting and predicting E.S. changes as in the case of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (e.g. Beven, 2011; Bradshaw & Brochers, 2000; Houghton & Morel, 1984; Houghton, 1990; Houghton, 2008; IPCC, 1990, 1996, 2001, 2007; Saloranta, 2001; Shackley et al., 1998; Thatcher, 1990).

The study of the Earth System is the object of a number of research programs that has been generally defined as "the study of the Earth system, with an emphasis on observing, understanding and predicting global environmental changes involving interactions between land, atmosphere, water, ice, biosphere, societies, technologies and economies" (Leemans et al., 2009). It constitutes a cross-disciplinary field of research, including a broad array of disciplines and techniques, for which General Systems Theory (G.S.T.) plays a major role for inter-disciplinary articulation. G.S.T. offers the natural sciences a key, yet conceptually simple method to formulate and solve problems involving a variety of disciplines, and can serve, for the social sciences, as the basis for conceptualizing about social systems by taking into account their functions, reproduction and meaning behind social action (Buckley, 1976; Luhmann, 2010; Rhoads, 1991). At the same time, a number of critical issues concerning environmental change and societal responses to it, including the conditions for the stability of social order, the possibilities for social change, and the role of the knowing human agent (e.g. Giddens, 2001; Habermas, 2000 [1968]; Luhmann, 2010; Rhoads, 1991; Rosenberg, 2010) may need a broader theoretico-conceptual framework extending beyond G.S.T. to be answered.

The main objective of this chapter is to examine inter-disciplinary articulation in E.S. studies, investigating how General Systems Theory and the multiplicity of theoreticomethodological perspectives taken by the social sciences1 can come together to explore both the "physical" problem of the changing E.S. and the social process of the emergence - for the social world - of the meaning of the changing E.S. problem2. The example of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is taken to illustrate how the problem of climate change may have emerged for the social world. The aim of the chapter is to contribute to broaden the prevailing conceptual model of Earth System studies, in which the technical concepts of observing and modelling are usually better understood and studied, by attempting to complement it with a few reflections about the part played by society.

<sup>1</sup>Before addressing the multiplicity of theoretico-methodological perspectives in the social sciences in more detail, it is possible to mention, as examples, the concepts of ideal type (Weber, 2005a [1904]), social fact (Durkheim, 1894), and structure and superstructure (Marx, 1859), which offer different approaches to conceptualize about the social world.

<sup>2</sup>Here it is postulated that in order to recognize and respond to the problem of the changing E.S., the social world needs both to understand the "physical" nature of the environmental changes and to elucidate to itself what such changes might mean. Although natural and social sciences take part in both processes, the emergence for the social world of the meaning of the problem would be seen as the result of social interaction leading to the elucidation of the extent and the consequences of the problem, as well as of possibilities of responding to it. The assumption of the double hermeneutic (Giddens, 2001) described in section 3.1 will help further explore these ideas for the case of the IPCC.

The chapter is organized in three major sections: the first presents an introductory, brief review of the problem of inter-disciplinary articulation and the importance of G.S.T. as a tool for it, the second reassesses the concept of method in the natural and the social sciences, and postulates how the problem of the emergence of meaning of environmental change can be explained within the G.S.T. framework, and the last section examines the workings of the IPCC, postulating the emergence of the ideas of detection and attribution of climate change, and of emission scenarios as shared concepts between the social world and science, that helped the social world to elucidate to itself what climate change might mean.
