In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States.BySheila Jasanoff. Princeton (New Jersey): Princeton University Press. $35.00 (hardcover); $18.95 (paper). xv + 374 p.; ill.; index. 0‐691‐11811‐6 (hc); 0‐691‐13042‐6 (pb). 2005.

This is the advice of a committee of leading American experts, chaired by Harvey Fineberg from the Harvard School of Public Health. It represents the fifth report in a series, commissioned by the US National Research Council, that considers how society can understand and cope with decisions about risks. The Committee's remit was to provide advice on risk characterisation, defined by the Research Council as the translation of `the information in a risk assessment ... into a form usable by a risk manager, individual decision maker, or the public'. In this book, the Committee has responded to the challenge clearly and authoritatively, beginning with a profound re-definition of `risk characterisation' that forms the basis for all that follows. In the view of the Committee, risk characterisation is a process. It is a process which starts before quantitative analysis of the risks, because it includes defining what risks to assess, and how most appropriately to assess them. It is an iterative process, in which assumptions are challenged and re-worked, and new information may be incorporated. It is a process in which qualitative judgements contribute to the fuller understanding of the problem; where quantitative scientific estimates, although important, contribute only a part. Most fundamentally, it is a process which, in a democratic society, needs to involve all those affected by the perceived problem and consequent decision. In the words of the Committee: `Experience shows that analyses, no matter how thorough, that do not address the decision-relevant questions, use reasonable assumptions, and meaningfully include the key affected parties can result in huge expenses and long delays and jeopardise the quality of understanding and the acceptability of the final decisions.' In other words, until or unless we expand our understanding of risk characterisation to include the process of defining the assessment itself, we are unlikely to make progress in gaining public acceptance for major decisions on health or environmental issues. For those without sufficient time to read the book, the ten-page summary provides a succinct overview of the Committee's advice, complete with bullet points and emboldened key phrases. However, the main body of the book (and particularly Appendix A, which discusses a number of case studies) is well worth scanning for its well-reasoned and well-structured discussion of the issues and the suggested way forward. Nor is the Committee lost in an `academic ivory tower'. It recognises that involvement of all those with vested interests cannot ensure a rapid or consensus solution or preclude some groups `dropping out' and choosing the route of litigation. It also recognises that allowing a `voice' for a wide range of interest groups can be time consuming and difficult to manage. However, the Committee argues: `While we are sensitive to concerns about cost and delay, we note that huge costs and delays have sometimes resulted when a risk situation was inadequately diagnosed, a problem misformulated, key interested and affected parties did not participate, or analysis proceeded unintegrated with deliberation. We believe that following [our] principles can reduce delays and costs as much as or more than it increases them.' So what are the Committee's principles? Getting the science right - any quantitative science that is undertaken must be of the highest standards. Getting the right science - this ensures that all the relevant risks are considered. Getting the right participation - this ensures that all those affected have a `voice' in the process. Getting the participation right - this ensures that the process is responsive to the needs of all the participants. Developing an accurate, balanced and informative synthesis - this should include a balanced understanding of the uncertainties in current knowledge, encompassing ignorance and indeterminacy as well as more quantifiable uncertainties. Again, in the words of the Committee: `These criteria are related. To be decision-relevant, risk characterisation must be accurate, balanced and informative. This requires getting the science right and getting the right science. Participation helps ask the right questions of the science, check the plausibility of assumptions, and ensure that any synthesis is both balanced and informative.' In order to set up an appropriate risk characterisation process, the Committee recommends that those responsible for it should `begin by developing a provisional diagnosis of the decision situation' in order to identify potential participants, allocate resources and structure the process. However, in doing so, they should `treat the diagnosis as tentative and remain open to change, always keeping in mind that their goal is a process that leads to a useful and credible risk characterization'. The Committee also stresses the need for those responsible for the process to `develop the capability to cope with attempts by some interested and affected parties to delay decision, and to develop a range of strategies for reaching closure'. This is likely to require the development of new skills and may require organisational changes `to improve communication across sub-units and to allow for the flexibility and judgement necessary to match the process to decision'. This balanced, reasoned and authoritative book is, in my opinion, a `must for all those involved in informing societal decision on risks.

Understanding Risk - Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society

Driverless cars with artificial intelligence (AI) and automated supermarkets run by collaborative robots (cobots) working without human supervision have sparked off new debates: what will be the impacts of extreme automation, turbocharged by the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, and the Industry 4.0, on Big Data and omics implementation science? The IoT builds on (1) broadband wireless internet connectivity, (2) miniaturized sensors embedded in animate and inanimate objects ranging from the house cat to the milk carton in your smart fridge, and (3) AI and cobots making sense of Big Data collected by sensors. Industry 4.0 is a high-tech strategy for manufacturing automation that employs the IoT, thus creating the Smart Factory. Extreme automation until “everything is connected to everything else” poses, however, vulnerabilities that have been little considered to date. First, highly integrated systems are vulnerable to systemic risks such as total network collapse in the event of failure of one of its...

Birth of Industry 5.0: Making Sense of Big Data with Artificial Intelligence, "The Internet of Things" and Next-Generation Technology Policy.

In this paper we bring together work on landscape, temporality and lay knowledges to propose new ways of understanding climate change. A focus on the familiar landscapes of everyday life offers an opportunity to examine how climate change could be researched as a relational phenomenon, understood on a local level, with distinctive spatialities and temporalities. Climate change can be observed in relation to landscape but also felt, sensed, apprehended emotionally as part of the fabric of everyday life in which acceptance, denial, resignation and action co-exist as personal and social responses to the local manifestations of a global problem.

Human geographies of climate change: Landscape, temporality, and lay knowledges:

Ciencia, tecnología y sociedad: una introducción al estudio social de la ciencia y la tecnología

Ciencia y política del riesgo

A modo de primera aproximacion, los estudios sociales de la ciencia y la tecnologia, o estudios sobre ciencia, tecnologia y sociedad (CTS), constituyen hoy un vigoroso campo de trabajo donde se trata de entender el fenomeno cientifico-tecnologico en contexto social, tanto en relacion con sus condicionantes sociales como en lo que atane a sus consecuencias sociales y ambientales. El enfoque general es de caracter critico, con respecto a la clasica vision esencialista y triunfalista de la ciencia y la tecnologia, y tambien de caracter interdisciplinar, concurriendo en el disciplinas como la filosofia y la historia de la ciencia y la tecnologia, la sociologia del conocimiento cientifico, la teoria de la educacion y la economia del cambio tecnico.
CTS se origina hace tres decadas a partir de nuevas corrientes de investigacion empirica en filosofia y sociologia, y de un incremento en la sensibilidad social e institucional sobre la necesidad de una regulacion publica del cambio cientifico-tecnologico. CTS define hoy un campo de trabajo bien consolidado institucionalmente en universidades, administraciones publicas y centros educativos de numerosos paises industrializados.
En el presente trabajo realizare una aproximacion a CTS como campo de trabajo internacional, comentando brevemente sus antecedentes, justificacion y principales orientaciones, en particular en el ambito de la educacion.

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Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad: el estado de la cuestión en Europa y Estados Unidos

The aim of this paper is to attempt to answer a key question of current STS scholarship and activism alike. Namely, what role should lay knowledge play in an adequate managing of technology and environment-related issues? On the basis of the intrinsic limitations of expert knowledge, the potential utility of local knowledge, and the need for political legitimacy, we argue for an active role for lay knowledge in technological and environmental policymaking. In our view, public participation should not end with a political sensitivity to public perceptions or public opinion; it should actively involve lay knowledge in order to achieve firm political legitimacy and a technically efficient policymaking in environment or technology-related issues. In the second part of this paper, we will apply our general argument to a case study of forestry policy: the so-called "eucalyptus problem" in Asturias, northern Spain.

Lay knowledge and public participation in technological and environmental policy

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José Antonio López Cerezo

Papers

Ciencia, tecnología y sociedad: una introducción al estudio social de la ciencia y la tecnología

Ciencia y política del riesgo

Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad: el estado de la cuestión en Europa y Estados Unidos

Lay knowledge and public participation in technological and environmental policy

Participación pública en política tecnológica: problemas y perspectivas