Jordan Fox Besek (Assistant Professor of Sociology, UB), “Flying Fish, Environmental DNA, and the Politics of Limited Science”

Political actors often want to know as much as possible about the social effects of environmental changes. Yet, because contemporary changes are so complex, the natural scientists who study environmental changes cannot always provide full guarantees regarding future impacts. The question at the center of this talk, then, is how do the limitations of performing science about environmental change interact with the politics of environmental change? To answer this question, I show how a set of scientists struggled to provide guarantees regarding the future migration of Asian carp, an invasive species that is currently threatening established science and established politics.