The Aging Out of the Scientific Method and the Birth of S-ES SM

Society needs a new problem-solving methodology today, just like it needed the Scientific Methodology in the 1600s. We cannot achieve the future we desire with the same methodology. Period.

It has been a good 400-year run, but the Scientific Method has run its course as the primary process and mindset to understand our world and resolve its issues.

Prior to the Scientific Method, society was unable to collectively understand the logic of the world. Its social sense must have been as confusing and chaotic as we are experiencing today; where we know we have a different future ahead of us, but we don’t know how to get there.

The Scientific Method

The Scientific Method, adopted in the early 1600s, has been the basis for much of what we understand our lives and society to be about. The Scientific Method displaced many superstitions and beliefs, and it marked a transition from the medieval worldview to a more humanistic and rational outlook.

Renaissance and Capitalism

The Scientific Method accelerated the Renaissance period and ushered in capitalism. The Scientific Method, as a process and mindset, is the methodology society has used to bring civilization to this point in history.

The Scientific Method is a paradigm of thought on how we comprehend the world and all of its components. It is a sensemaking process.

Wicked Problems and the Scientific Method

Fifty years ago, Rittel and Weber introduced wicked problems as the emerging issue of a complex, interconnected society. Wicked problems are the Kryptonite to the Scientific Method making it helpless in resolving them.

The Scientific Method relies on controlled experiments and empirical observations, which may not be feasible or effective in addressing complex and uncertain real-world problems.

The Scientific Method is not designed to address the social and political complexities that arise from the involvement of multiple stakeholders.

The Scientific Method tends to focus on isolated variables and linear cause-and-effect relationships, which may not capture the complex feedback loops and systemic dynamics associated with wicked problems.

The Scientific Method, by itself, does not provide a mechanism to resolve value conflicts or address subjective judgments and normative considerations.

The Scientific Method assumes a level of predictability and repeatability that may not hold in complex, changing systems. The iterative and adaptive nature of wicked problems requires flexible and responsive approaches that can adapt to changing circumstances and feedback.

The Scientific Method is not a sensemaking process for Wicked Problems.

Sensemaking for Wicked Problems

Sensemaking for wicked problems begins with understanding the social system “as it is”. Wicked problems, as embedded social issues, don’t exist outside of a social setting. The core of wicked issues are system actors, relationships, governance, and the real and perceived values generated by the system.

Three Principle Causes of Wicked Problems

Despite the provocative name wicked problems are as real as scientific problems. They are issues embedded in and emerge from socio-economic systems. Their deep complexity has a tendency to conceal their origins and causes. By examining multiple case studies and applying solutions, Gieseke (2016) identified three principal causes of wicked problems.

1) Systemic outputs and outcomes vary in type, scope, scale, and time.

2) Stakeholders use different measurement schemes and values relative to the systemic outputs and outcomes vary in type, scope, scale, and time to achieve their objectives

3) Organizations adopt and apply disparate and often conflicting governance styles to develop and apply their different measurement schemes and values relative to the systemic outputs and outcomes vary in type, scope, scale, and time to achieve their objectives.

With these three layers of systematic complexities, it is apparent how a problem can quickly become wicked.

The interaction among the three causes creates a socially complex and embedded wicked problem.

Beginning with Governance

Governance Actors

Every social system involves a mix of four actor types: Public Policymakers, Private Policymakers, Public Practitioners, and Private Practitioners. People involved in the system will need to know their role(s) and inclinations relative to their and others actor type.

Governance Styles

Every individual and entity applies a mix of three governance styles: Hierarchy, Market, and Network. People involved in the system will need to know the style(s) they and their organization have adopted.

Governance Paradox of Wicked Problems

The governance paradox of wicked problems state that to resolve wicked problems requires a diversity of entities, yet when they converge, new conflicts arise.

Each organization has a unique ratio of governance actors and apply a unique mix of governance styles. The result is often conflicting or incompatible goverance frameworks.

Diverse entities that converge around a wicked problem are usually unaware of the governance frameworks of other entities, and also unaware of their own governance frameworks relative to actors and styles.

Governance as an Emergent Quality of an Social Construct

Governance is often viewed as a static, predetermine structure imposed on an entity by a governing board or committee of sorts. And that is true in many organizations.

But governance is in many situations, perhaps most, is an emergent quality of the mix of actors and styles within an effort. Governance happens. Governance is such an intimate aspect of society that most people do not recognize when governance emerges. If a group of people get together to do a project, some form of governance occurs. Most likely, people do not vote for chair, vice chair, etc. but the mix of actors will choose a mix of styles to create a dynamic governance framework to move the project forward. It is like magic, but with no one knowing they are doing it.

Social-Economic Sustainability Scientific Method

Because governance guides society, governance is the primary lever to change socio-economic systems from “as it is” to “as it ought to be”.

The S-ES Scientific Method is designed as an in situ process to resolve wicked problems, not just to evaluate them.

In brief, the methodology required to resolve wicked problems

Firstly:

• Assess and Inform system participants to the type of governance actor they are and who others are.
• Inform the participants to what governance style they may commonly apply or prefer based on their governance actor type.
• Plot on the Governance Triad graphic where they occupy their governance model relative to other entities.

These three steps creates enough low-level governance literacy (five words: actors, styles, shifts, footprints, and frameworks) for enough of the participants to create an informed collaborative.

Secondly:

• Identify what the entities value and how they measure those values of the system. These are often very visible and widely-known (e.g., food companies value commodities, NGO value ecosystem services, practitioners value production, etc.)

Thirdly:

• Create an accounting unit(s) that is practitioner-focused that meets the accounting needs of the demanders for the system outputs. (This takes some thought and some trial and error of the Scientific Method)

In Situ Solution: Creating a Solution before Knowing the Problem

Rittel and Weber (1973) stated that wicked problems are so wicked that one cannot even know what the problem is prior to formulating a solution.

After compiling the three components of the S-ES SM, one must incorporate the solution into the system as the system is unfolding. In this manner, one can begin to see what the problem(s) may be.

The first question one should ask is, “how does the methodology change the governance of the system”.

If the governance does not change, the system will not experience durable change. If the governance does change, how does it affect relationships and values associated with the system.

Wicked Problems’ Greatest Challenge

The greatest challenge to resolving wicked problems is shifting governance. Governance is not just the way an organization “gets things done”, governance is a core defining attribute of an organization.

A government entity relies predominantly on a hierarchy governance style to be a government entity. A corporation relies predominantly on a market governance style to be a corporate entity. An NGO relies predominantly on a network governance style to be a NGO.

Fortunately, the resolution of wicked problems does not require those sectors to change who they are, but it does require the methodology to accommodate who they are via a shared governance model.

Wicked Problems’ Greatest Opportunity for Resolution

Shared governance is defined as where partnerships, ownership, equity, and accountability occur at the “point of service”. In other words, where the governance conflict occurs is at the point of service where entities acquire what they need from the system.

Rather than each entity inadvertently or purposely imposing their governance styles at the point of service (e.g. accounting unit), each entity applies their value in an interoperable manner relative to the needs of the practitioner that is responsible for the outputs and outcomes of the system.

Wicked Problem resolution is a governance thing, first. In other words, it is a GSE process, not an ESG process.

We are experiencing emerging chaos in our world because we have yet to develop a usable methodology to resolve the type of problem we are hoping to resolve.

Tim Gieseke manages natural capital and is the author of three books that outline the environmental, socio-economics, and governance of instituting a natural capital accounting system and employing EcoCommerce, a planetary-based economic system.

Collaborative Environmental Governance Frameworks: A Practical Guide (2019)

Shared Governance for Sustainable Working Landscapes (2016)

EcoCommerce 101: Adding an ecological dimension to the economy (2011)