64 research outputs found

    Nothing Recedes Like Success - Risk Analysis and the Organizational Amplification of Risks

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    Professor Freudenburg believes that there is room for improvement in Risk analysis, particularly in drawing on systematic studies of human behavior in the calculation of real, empirical probabilities of failure. The need is argued to be especially acute where technological Risks are associated with low expected probabilities of failure and are managed by human organizations for extended periods of time. This permits complacency to set in

    Seeding Science, Courting Conclusions: Reexamining the Intersection of Science, Corporate Cash, and the Law

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    Social scientists have expressed strong views on corporate influences over science, but most attention has been devoted to broad, Black/White arguments, rather than to actual mechanisms of influence. This paper summarizes an experience where involvement in a lawsuit led to the discovery of an unexpected mechanism: A large corporation facing a multibillion-dollar court judgment quietly provided generous funding to well-known scientists (including at least one Nobel prize winner) who would submit articles to "open," peer-reviewed journals, so that their "unbiased science" could be cited in an appeal to the Supreme Court. On balance, the corporation's most effective techniques of influence may have been provided not by overt pressure, but by encouraging scientists to continue thinking of themselves as independent and impartial

    Attitudes toward offshore oil development: A summary of current evidence

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    Attitudes toward offshore petroleum have varied widely across both time and place. This paper summarizes the accumulated evidence from around the globe and then examines two regions that represent the polar extremes - both drawn from the same country and the same era - southern Louisiana and northern California, over the past two decades. The comparison illustrates that attitudes toward offshore oil development are best understood through a closer examination of the ways in which the offshore industry has interacted with a given region, over time, in terms of three sets of factors - the historical, biophysical, and social factors that shape the people and culture of a given place and time. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

    Scientific certainty argumentation methods (SCAMs): Science and the politics of doubt

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    At least since the time of Popper, scientists have understood that science provides falsification, but not “proof. ” In the world of environmental and technological controversies, however, many observers continue to call precisely for “proof, ” often under the guise of “scientific certainty. ” Closer examination of real-world disputes suggests that such calls may reflect not just a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of science, but a clever and surprisingly effective political-economic tactic—“Scientific Certainty” Argumentation Methods, or SCAMs. Given that most scientific findings are inherently probabilistic and ambiguous, if agencies can be prevented from imposing any regulations until they are unambiguously “justified, ” most regulations can be defeated or postponed, often for decades, allowing profitable but potentially risky activities to continue unabated. An exploratory examination of previously documented controversies suggests that SCAMs are more widespread than has been recognized in the past, and that they deserve greater attention in the future. This article will identify a pattern of argument that is sufficiently common in regulatory debates that it appears to deserve its own name—“Scientifi
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