Precautionary Principle

 The precautionary principle sounds reasonable but is misguided at best. Aaron Wildavsky, Jew and political scientist wrote about the idea in But Is It True?. His answer in essence is NO! The chapter on detecting errors in environmental experiments [ pp 410 et seq ] says the evidence is often weak or non-existent, the experiments are badly designed & investigators are biased.

Conclusion: Rejecting the Precautionary Principle [ pp 427 et seq ] says it is a demand for applying worst case assumptions regardless of evidence. This leads to waste on solutions to problems that are imaginary. The moral issue is whether trivial improvements in health are more important than values like freedom, justice and excellence.

Precautionary Principle ex Wiki
QUOTE
The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.

This principle allows policy makers to make discretionary decisions in situations where there is the possibility of harm from taking a particular course or making a certain decision when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking. The principle implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the public from exposure to harm, when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk. These protections can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that provide sound evidence that no harm will result.

In some legal systems, as in the law of the European Union, the application of the precautionary principle has been made a statutory requirement.
UNQUOTE
The idea sounds reasonable at first glance. It is not however.

 

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Updated on 15/12/2023 14:12