But surely if the public is asked to listen to scientists in order to inform their opinion and if scientists across the world are saying that uncertainties associated with nano may present real risks it seems to me that ‘erring on the side of caution’ is a pretty sensible way forward and a sign of a science literate society!

Though interesting it appears to me that negative ‘certainties’ – eg trans fats are very very bad for us – don’t galvanise us into action to boycott as much as uncertainties?

I had a good discussion with someone yesterday where we explored whether if GM was invented today would we have any different an outcome or in fact whether it would be so widely taken up on the US at all? We decided we might not have too different an outcome.

As usual, I have become caught in the trap of expressing complex ideas in too limiting a forum! hat I was trying to get at is how a poor understanding of uncertainty, and how to handle it, can undermine decision-making within a number of sectors – including government, industry and different publics.

Two of the issues here are confusing uncertainty with risk, and rampant speculation in the face of uncertainty – both of which interfere with evidence-informed decision-making.

Some industries will take a conservative approach to uncertainty, effectively treating uncertainty as a risk, and this can inhibit the uptake of potentially beneficial technologies – look at how rapidly nanotechnology is not being taken up in the food sector for instance. Government regulators who are used to working with more certain risks are left high and dry in the face of uncertainty, and struggle with making oversight decisions on new technologies where the risks are far from certain. This can cut both ways, but there are certainly some industries that would complain this can lead to overly conservative approaches to oversight, which potentially stifle innovation. Then there is the question of how individuals and groups throughout society handle uncertainty. Here there are strong indications that a risk-averse populace will err on the side of caution in the face of uncertainty – issues surrounding GM foods in Europe were primarily about transparency and control, but were fueled by a fear of the unknown.

Of course, the factors here in determining how things unfold are complex and multi-faceted. But I would still argue that responsible and socially-responsive technology innovation faces a huge hurdle when it comes to handling uncertainty.

I only have one problem with your post Andrew – I don’t see much evidence of people ‘shying away from potentially beneficial technologies simply because we don’t know how they are going to unfold’! Certainly governments, companies, research councils and scientists aren’t doing much shying away and seeing how things unfold – quite the opposite! Perhaps you meant the public, but again not much shying away and lots of embracing and getting stuck in to my mind. Especially given science and industry’s poor track record on unintended consequences of innovations in many areas.

But what’s interesting me, and one of the aspects will be thinking about when I read it, is what they are going to do when the concerted efforts to involve the public indicate that the public doesn’t want something. So GM is a case in point. The public said they didn’t want it because they didn’t think what it did was really necessary, questioned the motives of those who profited from it and were unconvinced of assertions that it was safe for people and the environment. Given the information they had to go on at the time, this was actually a pretty reasonable perspective if you get rid of the hysteria on all sides.

So what will happen in this nirvana of public involvement if that happens again? And how many people disagreeing is enough to make a change? For example, 1 million people in the UK were said to have physically marched against the Iraq war and many more disagreed with the policy, but it still went ahead. How many people have to say no for it to count?

Very very tricky thing to do. Looking forward to reading it to see if they have the answer. I certainly haven’t!