Challenges to Expert Knowledge in Understanding and Managing Risk - Essay Example

Challenges to Expert Knowledge in Understanding and Managing Risk 1. Introduction The provided text distinguishes between risk and uncertainty arguing that risk refers to known hazards while uncertainty refers to unknown ones. (Carter and Jordon p. 59) I would argue that both can pose risks of harm to people whether known and anticipated or not. The difference is that there is a greater possibility of being able to understand and manage a known risk than one hidden in uncertainty. While expert knowledge can help we can never eliminate all risk. However expert knowledge has its’ own challenges in identifying and managing risk I would argue that these challenges fall into 2 categories. The first concerns applications and shortcomings of the expert science involved when dealing with specific problems. The second type of challenge is the effect of culture and lifestyle going against expert knowledge even when it is consistent and widely accepted. I will now discuss each category in turn. 2. Challenges to Expert Science 2.1Effect of Contradictory, Questionable, Insufficient, and Inconclusive Scientific Analysis The first example of contradictory science concerns garden allotments the City of London provided to its’ residents. (Carter and Jordon p.63) Based on soil tests the city claimed they found arsenic and lead rendering vegetables grown in the allotments unsafe and ordering the cessation of their production and consumption. However a second different type of test , while confirming the presence of minute quantities of arsenic and lead determined that it was so small vegetables grown were fit for human consumption. The contradictory results can be explained by the different testing methods. The first test measured the level of toxins in soil samples by laboratory testing and made assumptions about their effect on humans if the vegetables were eaten. The government arbitrarily decided that only arsenic levels below 20 parts per million w3ould be deemed safe. The second more recent type of testing attempted to measure the actual amount of toxin that could be safely absorbed by the human body taking into account that some of it would be rendered inert or harmless by being chemically bound to various elements in the soil and therefore not ingested by the human gut. The test attempted to mimic the gut of a 2 year old child as this age was assumed to be the most at risk. However the validity of such a test is still debated. Because it was considered unethical to ask humans to eat potential poisons rats were substituted as they are considered physiologically close to humans in spite of their obvious physical difference. Various replications of this test have produced inconsistent results but all show toxic levels below those of the first type of soil test. Therefore the scientific evidence to date is contradictory and open to question and thus presents challenges for people and government to understand and manage the risk of consumption of allotment vegetables if it in fact exists. The fact that there is no mention of anyone becoming ill because of eating allotment vegetables would imply there is little if any ris. If there was a risk it would have existed prior to the testing even without knowledge of the arsenic presence. 2.2Risk Society The authors describe a concept called the Risk Society developed by German sociologist Ulrich Beck using the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion as an example. (Carter and Jordon p.79) In this theory he argues that we are shifting from an industrial society where political deliberations were based on the distribution of wealth they were increasingly focused on the distribution of harm. The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl illustrates that while cleaner nuclear energy may reduce the air pollution risks of fossil fuels such as coal it has it’s own risks of people becoming ill and dying due to radiation escaping from an exploded reactor. It is not clear whether the Chernobyl disaster was caused by insufficient attention being paid to possible risks or that the state of scientific knowledge was insufficient to anticipate the risks, but it is certain that the public is increasingly dependent on expert knowledge to understand and manage such risks except those they can manage in their immediate surroundings. Clearly, as Chernobyl illustrates, if the expert knowledge is not sufficiently developed and/or is improperly applied the results can be disastrous. There are other less dramatic risks in which aside from obvious extremes there is no clear unanimous expert opinion that the public can rely on. For example is it safe for pregnant women to consume moderate amounts of alcohol? Is there harmful radiation conveyed during cell phone use? To what degree do sun tans cause skin cancer and if they do to what extent is this risk offset by the benefits of vitamin D? Are tanning beds a better or more dangerous alternative? 2.3Epidemiology Epidemiology is concerned with tracking certain kinds of illness over large populations with a view to assessing risk factors associated with such illnesses. (Carter and Jordon p.83) The goal is not necessarily to establish a causal link between a risk factor and the illness but merely a statistical correlation. The risk factors may be physical such as blood pressure, lung function, etc. and/or social such as socioeconomic status or psychosocial characteristics. Originally it was focused on infectious diseases but with the decline in that risk it concentrated more on non-infectious diseases such as coronary heart and cancer. While expert knowledge based on statistical correlation of factors may be useful in attempting to understand and manage risk, it has a weakness in that it may hide a third factor which could be the actual cause of an illness. For example a marathon runner may collapse during a race. It may initially be assumed that this was from dehydration and exhaustion but the actual cause could be an undetected asymptomatic heart issue. Cigarette manufacturers have challenged smoking laws based on epidemiological associations of lung cancer and smoking arguing that no causal relationship has been proven .Also media reports may exaggerate the significance of a minor elevation of an alleged risk factors based on a single study such as increased risk of blood clots for women associated with the use of a particular oral contraceptive pill. Another challenge to expert knowledge in understanding and managing risks is the prevention paradox. In Britain in the 1940s there was a mass immunization of children against diphtheria when only one in 600 would be afflicted even without immunization. Some epidemiologists have linked heart disease to lifestyle activities such as eating fatty foods, drinking, smoking and lack of exercise but no strong connection has been proven. Many in the public have been skeptical about expert knowledge epidemiology because it runs counter to their own experience and observation of friends and therefore developed their own lay epidemiology. This phenomenon will be discussed in the next section. 3. Challenges to Expert Knowledge due to Cultural Factors Another study contrasts the expert knowledge of skin cancer caused by sun exposure and tourist operators promoting vacations to sunny destinations as a health benefit .Carter and Jordon p. 72) Interviews and focus groups showed that tourists, especially those from rainy areas of Scotland, while aware of expert knowledge stressing the risks of sun exposure tended to downplay it citing the use of sunscreen products and were more concerned about arriving on vacation already wit a tan through the use of sun beds. They also stressed the wearing of attractive beachwear for social acceptance. To many tourists the symbolic risk of social rejection due to being without tan outweighed the material risk of skin cancer because the former was rationalized as being more immediate and likely. On return a tan served as a sort of status symbol proving vacation at an exotic sunny destination. Finally people reported feeling healthier with a tan. This shows that lay epidemiology touting perceived benefits of tans can trump expert knowledge. I suspect this would change only if people actually experienced skin cancer and/or their friends did. 4Conclusion I believe the above evidence shows that there are challenges to expert knowledge in understanding and managing risk both because of shortcomings in the science of risk identification and measurement and in cultural values which tend to downplay risks not perceived in people’s personal experience. Word count1366 Section Subsection Page No. 1. Introduction 2 2 Challenges to Expert Science 2 2.1 Effect of Contradictory, Questionable, Insufficient and Inconclusive Scientific Evidence 2 2.2 Risk Society 3 2.3 Epidemiology 4 3. Challenges to Expert Knowledge due to Cultural Factors 5 4. Conclusion 6 Read More