gsfc.nasa.gov/). The SeaWiFS and MODIS data were made available by NASA’s Ocean Color Web maintained by the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) (http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/). “
“It is nowadays a common requirement when preparing scientific proposals that the project is generating societally useful knowledge or Tofacitinib price skills. Thus, almost all proposals feature a section or at least a paragraph which describes “outreach”, “knowledge transfer” or “stakeholder-interaction”. In many cases, the proposers and reviewers have only lay-concepts

for doing so, and the activity goes rarely beyond giving a few talks on public events and a press release, while others generate advanced web-pages (“tool boxes” and “roadmaps”) for the public and policy makers. Thus, the reference

to stakeholders and decision making is often merely rhetorical and is not backed by thought–through concepts and MG-132 purchase approaches, but are based on naïve “linear” models operating with superior knowledge, which needs to be filled in stakeholders, who ask for enlightenment (e.g., van der Sluijs, 2010). Many scientifically legitimate and valid questions or answers have no direct bearing for any stakeholder. Therefore it is not surprising that the stakeholder-interaction is often not taken seriously. Indeed, most scientific achievements will have no significant direct applications, but contribute “merely” to the overall understanding of a complex and multi-faceted natural and social milieu. Indeed, it is one of the narratives of the logic of funding science, which some relate to the US thinker Vannevar Bush (1945), that a few supported efforts of many will result in very useful off-springs, such as the famous Teflon pan. In this logic, the cost–benefit balance of funding science is positive because of some practical hits, while most efforts result in scientifically exciting insights with little relevance for anything except for a better understanding of often remote niches of reality. Since nobody knows, which of the many efforts will prove useful, it is best to fund all of them, as long as they are “scientifically good”. Whether

this strategy is realistic is another question, and other thinkers contend that science, which is based on the desire for being Oxalosuccinic acid able to explain our natural and social environment, is just a fundamental need of western civilization and culture. Admittedly, some of these scientific insights provide clues for a better understanding or better modeling of the system at hand. In the spirit of Vannevar Bush, some of these improvements turn out being useful in decision processes at a later time. However, it is not so that science would solve societal conflicts and would lead to sustainable “solutions”, such as how to use certain areas, or how to decide about conflicting usages of coastal seas, such as off-shore wind energy, fishing and natural conversation.