Researching sustainable agriculture: The role of values in systemic science

Summary

This paper presents a specific perspective on the science demarcation issue, the perspective of systemic science. A systemic science is a science that influences its own subject area. Agricultural science is an example of such a science - a point that is particularly evident in connection with research in organic farming, which forms the practical context of this paper. Far from the ideal of being 'value-free' and objective, the systemic science must, upon recognising itself as systemic, acknowledge the role of values in research and include value inquiry as a specific research task. But still, the systemic science insists that it is science. Given that it is science, what then demarcates 'science' as different from other social activities? Or, in other terms, what are the proper criteria of scientific quality for systemic sciences? The paper aims to develop the conception of systemic science and investigate some basic aspects of science as a learning process, in order to work towards a more adequate foundation for developing and evaluating systemic research methods, and for determining appropriate criteria of scientific quality in systemic science.