In this article, a notion of scientific uncertainty is sketched that is in many ways different from the prevailing view. Scientific uncertainty is not simply an objective value that can be reduced by science alone. Rather, scientific uncertainty is constructed both by science and by society in order to serve certain purposes. Recognizing the social role of scientific uncertainty will help us to see how many of our problems about risk are deeply cultural and cannot be overcome simply by the application of more and better science.
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References
1.
1. See, for example, E. S. Rubin, L. B. Lave, and M. G. Morgan, “Keeping Climate Research Relevant,”Issues in Science and Technology, 8(2):47-55 (1991-92).
2.
2. I have developed this view more fully in a number of papers. See, for example, “Ethics, Public Policy and Global Warming,”Science, Technology and Human Values, 17(2):139-153 (1992).
3.
3. The typology of greenhouse “hawks,”“doves,” and “owls” is developed in Michael H. Glantz, “Politics and the Air Around Us: International Policy Action on Atmospheric Pollution by Trace Gases,” in Societal Responses to Regional Climate Change: Forecasting by Analogy, ed. M. Glantz (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988), pp. 41-42.
4.
4. This point is argued forcefully in Brian L. Campbell, “Uncertainty as Symbolic Action in Disputes Among Experts,”Social Studies of Science, 15:429-453 (1985).
5.
5. Although I draw the distinctions in a somewhat different way, my discussion in this section is indebted to Brian Wynne, “Uncertainty and Environmental Learning: Reconceiving Science and Policy in the Preventive Paradigm,”Global Environmental Change, 2:111-127 (1992).
6.
6. For discussion of these cases, see D. Budansky, “Scientific Uncertainty and the Precautionary Principle,”Environment, 33(7):4-5, 43-44 (Sept. 1991).
7.
7. For further discussion, see Paul Slovic, “Perceived Risk, Trust, and Democracy,”Risk Analysis, 13(6):675-682 (1993).
8.
8. In addition, some have argued that indeterminism is a fundamental property of nature. See, for example, John Dupré, The Disorder of Things: The Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
9.
9. The classic argument for underdetermination can be found in W.V.O. Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge: MITPress, 1960).
10.
10. For further discussion, see Budansky, “Scientific Uncertainty.”
11.
11. Simon Shackley and Brian Wynne, “Representing Uncertainty in Global Climate Change Science and Policy: Boundary-Ordering Devices and Authority,”Science, Technology and Human Values (in press).
12.
12. Ibid., p. 25 (in manuscript).
13.
13. These suggestions are more fully developed in Charles Herrick and Dale Jamieson, “The Social Construction of Acid Rain,”Global Environmental Change, 5(2):105-112 (May 1995).
14.
14. I have discussed some of these reforms in “What Society Will Expect from the Future Research Community,”Science and Engineering Ethics, 1(1):73-80 (1995).
