Real Risk

A GOOD PLACE TO START: MY NEW BOOK ... 

... and a 2002 paper on the history of risk assessment

Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet

This link will take you to detailed chapter summaries from "Intervention," the book I published in December 2006. Using genetic engineering and emerging biotechnologies as its model, 'Intervention' paints a vivid picture of the scientific uncertainties that biotech risk evaluations dismiss or ignore, and lays bare the power and money conflicts between academia, industry and regulators that have sped these risky innovations to the market.

Risk: The Art and the Science of Choice

I wrote this "landscaping" paper -- basically, a history of the field of risk assessment for science and technology -- at the behest of the Rockefeller Foundation. My primary source materials were four studies published by the U.S. National Academies over the past 20 years. If you're interested in new approaches to these specific kinds of risks, this overview is a good place to start.

Best Books and Reports 

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

A best-seller by the economist Peter Bernstein, "Against the Gods" is the most accessible primer you can read about the (truly remarkable!) history of risk and the traditional methods of risk analysis. Just mention the word "risk," and someone will invariably recommend it to you.

"Risk: A Guide to Controversy"

Written for a non-technical audience by the risk expert Baruch Fischhoff of Carnegie Mellon University, this practical and very understandable guide impressively demonstrates how to realistically characterize risk controversies along five essential dimensions, such as 'What are the limits to scientific estimates of riskiness?' and 'What are the (psychological) obstacles to laypeople's understanding of risks?'

Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society

Published in 1996, this landmark NRC report was pure anarchy compared to the predictable days in the mid-20th century, when risk analyses based purely on probability calculations were on their own merits believable, acceptable, and in any case, simply the Way It Was Done. Understanding Risk throws down the gauntlet and says that risk analysis is a political, ethical and values-laden activity, period, and that it should be conducted with full participation by the people whose fate is at stake.
Many of the members of the Committee on Risk Characterization who participated in this study -- who in their own right comprise a Who's Who of risk and public policy scholars -- say that it was the most important project of their careers.

Risk Society

The German sociologist Ulrich Beck's compelling extended essay about risk and modernity is a must-read for anyone interested in the cultural context in which risk exists. His theme, simply said, is that modern science and technology have created a "risk society" in which the production of wealth has been overtaken by the production of risk. Scientists create the risks, he says, then fix them -- a kind of unofficial "full employment act" for the intellgentsia.

Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies

One of the early public signals of a shift away from the purely mathematical interpretation of probabilities, risk and analysis. This book, now a classic, was written by the Yale sociologist Charles Perrow -- the only social scientist asked to join the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island. The logic behind this odd term is that given the characteristics of complex systems -- including humans -- some failures are inevitable. But most are not.

Risk

A delightful and enlightening book by the geographer John Adams at University College London. Here Adams details (among other things) his theory of the "risk thermostat," showing that each of us has a different tolerance for risk. And on the other end, he shows how those who conduct risk analyses have their own biases and judgments that color the results they present to the public about the risks they measure.

"Managing Risks to the Public"

This cutting-edge, practical approach to managing risk follows the general methodological guidelines championed by Understanding Risk. It was designed by many well-known risk experts for Her Majesty's Treasury in order to achieve greater consistency and transparency in government decision-making.
Alongside the economic analysis of options available to reduce risk, it exhorts decision makers to explicitly involve the public -- to understand what they are concerned about and why, and to communicate good information about risk, targeted to the needs of the audiences involved.

"Policy, Risk, and Science: Securing and Using Scientific Advice"

A report prepared by Oxford Economic Research Associates for the UK Government's Health and Safety Executive and written by Chris Elliott, a consulting system engineer and a barrister specializing in public law. HSE adopted the OXERA report conclusions wholesale in its response to the lengthy government inquiry into its assessment of the risks of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or "mad cow disease."

Science and Judgment in Risk Assessment

This is another one of four terrific NRC reports on risk, although you'd be hard pressed to see many of its recommendations in action today. Its suggestions on how to use uncertainty as a tool in risk analysis, rather than avoiding it, can be generalized to all kinds of scientific and technological risks. The report is worth the price just to read the committee's eye-opening critique of how its client (in this case, US EPA) was doing it wrong -- and what it should do instead.

Science at the Bar

Written by the formidable scholar Sheila Jasanoff, who is now a professor of science and technology studies in the Kennedy School at Harvard, this was the first book to explore how two of the most powerful institutions in America -- science and the courts -- interact with each other in order to regulate technological innovation and political change. Their interactions often decide how government legislates the risks we're exposed to.

The Emergence of Probability

Much more than a critique of the growth of probability theory in the 15th through 17th centuries, this book shows the profound impact of the mathematics of probability on human thought. Masterfully written by the historian and philosopher of science, Ian Hacking.

"The RISCOM Model for Transparency"

The VALDOC group is an international team of scholars that has developed a framework for making risk decisions about scientific and technological advances. It includes the RISCOM model, which provides decision makers and the public with a way to validate the claims made by experts. There's also a report on the EC-funded project using the RISCOM model to evaluate nuclear waste disposal at http://www.karinta-konsult.se/RISCOM.htm.

Relevant Risk-Oriented Organizations and Institutions 

Society for Risk Analysis

A multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, scholarly, international society that provides an open forum for all those who are interested in risk analysis.

Programme on Understanding Risk

A major research program (2001-2005) supported by the Leverhulme Trust in the U.K., conducting research on the social dynamics of contemporary risk issues. Directed by Nick Pidgeon and based at the University of East Anglia, the program's main themes are public risk perception, trust in institutions, risk communication and stakeholder involvement. Its case studies were genetic modification and food safety, climate change, hazardous waste and the risks of mobile telephony.

Carnegie Mellon University Department of Social and Decision Sciences

Widely considered the finest risk and decision analysis department in the U.S. and perhaps in the world, CMU's Department of Social and Decision Sciences houses faculty from a wide variety of disciplines, including economics, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology. Several of its faculty have produced some of the field's seminal literature. Its teaching and research programs are grounded in several intellectual themes that cut across the social sciences, including decision theory, organization theory, and political economy.