I. Monstrous genes and atoms

Question 1

Define risk in the context of Stirling’s matrix of uncertainty, give an example.

Answer 1

probability of a known event occurring, so knowledge of outcomes and their likelihood are well known. This demands a large amount of good quality and wide-ranging data.

e.g. nuclear plant failure (in theory!), but defo individual health risk like alcohol and smoking

Question 2

Define uncertainty in the context of Stirling’s matrix.

Answer 2

unmeasurable unknowns; when outcomes or pathways are known, so the hazard is obvious, but probability of this is not measurable nor known.

Question 3

Define ambiguity in the context of Stirling’s matrix.

Answer 3

when knowledge about the outcomes is weak but it is known whether “something” dangerous is likely to happen or not

Question 4

Define ignorance in the context of Stirling’s matrix, give an example.

Answer 4

When knowledge about both outcomes and their liklihood is weak -> ignoring or unaware of them both - due to lack of data/info/expertise

Question 5

Define hazard

Answer 5

events, processes or products that pose a threat to organisms and/or environments

Question 6

Define pathway

Answer 6

the route a hazard takes to reach a vulnerable recipient

Question 7

What is an evidentiary approach?

Answer 7

safety as no evidence of harm - easier, faster, assumptions, centralised and expert-led

Question 8

What is a precautionary approach?

Answer 8

safety as evidence of no harm - slower, hard work, taking care of monsters, more critical, more actors to include, exploration, ‘more exacting burden of proof’

Question 9

What are the four steps used within risk analyses to reduce the world to measurable knowns or estimations?

Answer 9

1. Event, hazard or outcome identification
2. Pathways to event known
3. Calculation of likelihood of event occurring
4. Agreement on implications or acceptability of costs

Question 10

What are the problems with modernist risk analyses and what should be done instead according to Stirling (2010)?

Answer 10

We are realising that the hazards we face cannot be numerically, confidently calculated nor determined (due to globalizing world) but governments like to present this uncertainty simply, as reducible, calculable, just a small amount of ‘not knowing’.

Instead… Keep it Complex!

Different forms of uncertainty (matrix) need to be acknowledged + we cannot assume only one singular definitive pathway, recognise the role of social choice, varied info.

‘Move towards plural… would help avoid erroneous ‘one-track’, ‘race to the future’ visions of progress’.

Question 11

What can be used to exemplify the use of the evidentiary approach to risk (that ignores the extent of uncertainty and limits of science)? What did it yield?

Answer 11

Monsanto’s Bt Corn and the EPA’s failed approach to investigating the damage on monarch butterfly populations (amazing trans-generational migration an endangered phenomenon -> climate change, US landuse, pesticides).

Bt Corn: soil organism that produces specific toxins which affect invertebrates i.e. they protect themselves from insects around them. ‘Self-protection gene’ was cut, isolated, inserted into corn.

Resistance to corn borer moth but concerns over harm to Monarch butterfly -> US EPA ran safety trials, declared ‘no detrimental effects were found’

Use of evidentiary approach regarding the detrimental effects on the environment and people

Question 12

What did a precautionary approach do that the evidentiary one didn’t in the case of Bt corn?

Answer 12

A different team, Cornell University, investigated effects of Bt corn pollen accumulation on neighbouring plants -> if blown on milkweed, bad for Monarch larvae (lab-based though).

Question 13

What is the evidentiary approach used to communicate but which is in fact philosophically impossible?

Answer 13

Presentation of a certainty of no impact, based on scientific evidence (EPA on Bt Corn - benefits outweigh costs, we’re super sure guys)

Question 14

What is the precautionary principle? How does this link to Stirling’s (2010) and Latour’s (2011) ideas?

Answer 14

slowing down research process when harm has potential to be huge but uncertain as to how likely it is for this to occur

adopted by EU to make sure science finds evidence of no harm rather than no evidence of harm - demands a slower process with transdisciplinary involvement and expertise beyond science

to ‘slow down’, engage with more groups and forms of knowledge, and regulate the proliferation of monsters, not ignore uncertainty, expand focus (Stirling; Latour)

Question 15

What can be used to exemplify the potential for new risks in light of the growing power of humans to modify genes? (Nature Special, 2015-17)

Answer 15

CRISPR-Cas9 technology - Nature Special

2015: editing of human embryos, ethical questions rise - potential to eradicate genetic disease before birth?? Unpredictable effects on future generations. Potentially harmful unintended mutations.
2016: (Ledford) ‘wave of new techs made possible’, can alter genes of any genome with ‘unprecedented ease’; ‘exciting the molecular biological community’
2017: could improve IVF, genetic mutations, important insight into biology of human embryos (woo great I hear you say), but if not strictly peer-reviewed, monitored, has potential to be unsafe, unethical, have unintended consequences.
- > the regulatory landscape is shifting, making GM better, easier, safer? Or more dangerous? How are we to know?

Question 16

What makes the measurement and calculation of radioactivity risk so difficult? Give 3 definitions to demonstrate this.

Answer 16

Actual radioactivity does not reflect the impact it has on humans as this is dependent on absorbed or effective dose (both of which are further dependent on different factors which can themselves be hard to calculate)

radioactivity: emissions per unit area or mass

absorbed dose: how much radioactivity received by a living organism, dependent on emissions and individual size and proximity

effective dose: pathway and radiation type; introduction of quality factor i.e. skin, consumption, inhalation/α, β, or γ

Question 17

Define indeterminacy (Wynne, 1992).

Answer 17

not knowing conditions nor outcome due to complexity, no causal logic will help, also the fact that science itself is uncertain, contested, knowledge is constrained and conditional (but often presented as “artificially unconditional” which means uncertainty is not acknowledged and alternative, better action is never realised!)

Question 18

How does nuclear power represent a normal accident and ‘monster’? Give an example.

Answer 18

Power station failure -> notoriously complex systems and are indeed tightly coupled, with chain-reactions possible - doomed to fail? Man-made and man-run after all.

Chernobyl, 1986: poor system design where the automatic shutdown procedure would be disabled durig routine tests, leaving the reactor in an unstable state.

Industry pressure to have tests and cover up any erros or concerns -> eventually H and O mixed and resulted in explosion.

Question 19

What happened after the Chernobyl reactor meltdown in Europe and the UK?

Answer 19

Explosion raised radioactive dust into the atmosphere, which travelled 4000 km circiling NW Europe for 7 days.

The cloud rained onto NW UK onto region where lots of sheep farms were.

Fears of radioactive particulates getting into food chain, potential other effects (unseen accumulatng) on health of locals.

Question 20

How did the UK government respond to the risk of radiation?

Answer 20

Ministry of Agriculture Farming and Forestry issued statement to tell farmers what will happen and what to do.

Stated low-risk based on lab-based study (Gale et al., 1964) that found fast-ish percolation rates for Cs-137 (lingers) and I-121 (shorter half life), and low concern cos insoluble in water -> fallout would have dispersed by late-summer sheep market = low probability of Cs-137 gettin into meat and that.

Question 21

How successful was the UK governmetns response to the risk of radiation? What does this reveal about the application of scientific knowledge?

Answer 21

20 years later (2006-2009) restricted areas remain, with levels of radioactivity, farmers losing income.

indeterminacy - poor translation of knowledge (study that measured rate of runoff based on flat grassy lab environment and produced a high mean rate but this had a range -> NW UK obvs wild, peat, boggy, wet, alkaline, poor drainage)

top-down, info-deficit -> clear lack of engagement with farmers and their environment

Question 22

What alternative, less scientific and top-down responses to risk could be adopted?

Answer 22

Participatory risk analysis

Instead of research conducted top-down by distant hydrologists/ecologists, can include “lay”, industry-specific and local individuals who actually are not lay but have important valuable insight into their environment.