Social science and the absence of nature: uncertainty and the reality of extremes

The elimination of nature from social science discourse is one of the most noteworthy features of the intellectual history of the social sciences of t his century. Proposals to overcome the prohibition to (re-)introduce nature into the social sciences are on the increase and practical and theoretical justifications are offered in support of them. In this article we critical ly examine several sociological approaches that have attempted to respond t o the ecological crisis. In the end, these approaches remain overly tied to questions of epistemology and fail to offer a satisfactory alternative. On the basis of a discussion of theories and research in the sociology of sci ence and work on decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, we propos e to develop an alternative basis for "bringing nature" into serial science discourse. We explore extreme climate events to illustrate how natural phe nomena appear as real, yet at the same time constructed.