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The "precautionary principle" is widely seen as fundamental to
successful policies for sustainability. It has been cited in
international courts and trade disputes between the USA and the EU,
and invoked in a growing range of political debates. Understanding
what it can and cannot achieve is therefore crucial.;This volume
looks back over the last century to examine the role the
"principle" played or could have played, in a range of major and
avoidable public disasters. From detailed investigation of how each
disaster unfolded, what the impacts were and what measures were
adopted, the authors draw lessons and establish criteria that could
help to minimise the health and environmental risks of future
technological, economic and policy innovations.;This is an
informative resource for all those from lawyers and policy-makers,
to researchers and students needing to understand or apply the
"principle".
In Rationality and Ritual, internationally renowned expert Brian
Wynne offers a profound analysis of science and technology
policymaking. By focusing on an episode of major importance in
Britain's nuclear history - the Windscale Inquiry, a public hearing
about the future of fuel reprocessing - he offers a powerful
critique of such judicial procedures and the underlying assumptions
of the rationalist approach. This second edition makes available
again this classic and still very relevant work. Debates about
nuclear power have come to the fore once again. Yet we still do not
have adequate ways to make decisions or frame policy deliberation
on these big issues, involving true public debate, rather than
ritualistic processes in which the rules and scope of the debate
are presumed and imposed by those in authority. The perspectives in
this book are as significant and original as they were when it was
written. The new edition contains a substantial introduction by the
author reflecting on changes (and lack of) in the intervening years
and introducing new themes, relevant to today's world of big
science and technology, that can be drawn out of the original text.
A new foreword by Gordon MacKerron, an expert on energy and nuclear
policy, sets this seminal work in the context of contemporary
nuclear and related big technology debates.
This book analyses the treatment of uncertainties within risk
management and regulation for hazardous wastes, in five national
case-studies. It is shown that, although institutional
uncertainties vary between national political cultures, regulatory
bureaucracies everywhere understate these more fundamental
uncertainties (which are often structural conflicts, of different
rationalities) and define them instead as marginal technical
uncertainties or imprecision in risk-definitions. Close comparative
analysis shows that technical regulatory standards depend upon
their local institutional setting in systematic ways, so that
conventional regulatory emphasis on technical precision or
standardisation should be replaced by greater social negotiation,
and educated public involvement and control. Readers will find the
book valuable for its novel analytical approach especially in
relation to public acceptance issues, and the argument for fresh
practical approaches derived from this; in addition there is new
information and analysis from the descriptive materials in case
studies. Its main aim is to stimulate fresh thinking and approaches
to an urgent problem.
DNA Barcoding has been promoted since 2003 as a new, fast,
digital genomics-based means of identifying natural species based
on the idea that a small standard fragment of any organism s genome
(a so-called micro-genome ) can faithfully identify and help to
classify every species on the planet. The fear that species are
becoming extinct before they have ever been known fuels barcoders,
and the speed, scope, economy and user-friendliness claimed for DNA
barcoding, as part of the larger ferment around the genomics
revolution, has also encouraged promises that it could inspire
humanity to reverse its biodiversity-destructive habits.
This book is based on six years of ethnographic research on
changing practices in the identification and classification of
natural species. Informed both by Science and Technology Studies
(STS) and the anthropology of science, the authors analyse DNA
barcoding in the context of a sense of crisis concerning global
biodiversity loss, but also the felt inadequacy of taxonomic
science to address such loss. The authors chart the specific
changes that this innovation is propelling in the collecting,
organizing, analyzing, and archiving of biological specimens and
biodiversity data. As they do so they highlight the many questions,
ambiguities and contradictions that accompany the quest to create a
genomics-based environmental technoscience dedicated to
biodiversity protection. They ask what it might mean to recognise
ambiguity, contradiction, and excess more publicly as a
constitutive part of this and other genomic technosciences.
"Barcoding Nature" will be of interest to students and scholars
of sociology of science, science and technology studies, politics
of the environment, genomics and post-genomics, philosophy and
history of biology, and the anthropology of science."
DNA Barcoding has been promoted since 2003 as a new, fast,
digital genomics-based means of identifying natural species based
on the idea that a small standard fragment of any organism s genome
(a so-called micro-genome ) can faithfully identify and help to
classify every species on the planet. The fear that species are
becoming extinct before they have ever been known fuels barcoders,
and the speed, scope, economy and user-friendliness claimed for DNA
barcoding, as part of the larger ferment around the genomics
revolution, has also encouraged promises that it could inspire
humanity to reverse its biodiversity-destructive habits.
This book is based on six years of ethnographic research on
changing practices in the identification and classification of
natural species. Informed both by Science and Technology Studies
(STS) and the anthropology of science, the authors analyse DNA
barcoding in the context of a sense of crisis concerning global
biodiversity loss, but also the felt inadequacy of taxonomic
science to address such loss. The authors chart the specific
changes that this innovation is propelling in the collecting,
organizing, analyzing, and archiving of biological specimens and
biodiversity data. As they do so they highlight the many questions,
ambiguities and contradictions that accompany the quest to create a
genomics-based environmental technoscience dedicated to
biodiversity protection. They ask what it might mean to recognise
ambiguity, contradiction, and excess more publicly as a
constitutive part of this and other genomic technosciences.
"Barcoding Nature" will be of interest to students and scholars
of sociology of science, science and technology studies, politics
of the environment, genomics and post-genomics, philosophy and
history of biology, and the anthropology of science.
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger
Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain
imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed
pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we
have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting,
preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger
Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and
hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!
This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such
as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.
Rapid advances and new technologies in the life sciences - such as
biotechnologies in health, agricultural and environmental arenas -
pose a range of pressing challenges to questions of citizenship.
This volume brings together for the first time authors from diverse
experiences and analytical traditions, encouraging a conversation
between science and technology and development studies around
issues of science, citizenship and globalisation. It reflects on
the nature of expertise; the framing of knowledge; processes of
public engagement; and issues of rights, justice and democracy. A
wide variety of pressing issues is explored, such as medical
genetics, agricultural biotechnology, occupational health and
HIV/AIDS. Drawing upon rich case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin
America and Europe, Science and Citizens asks: * Do new
perspectives on science, expertise and citizenship emerge from
comparing cases across different issues and settings? * What
difference does globalisation make? * What does this tell us about
approaches to risk, regulation and public participation? * How
might the notion of 'cognitive justice' help to further debate and
practice?
Misunderstanding Science? offers a challenging new perspective on the public understanding of science. In so doing, it challenges existing ideas of the nature of science and its relationships with society. Its analysis and case presentation are highly relevant to current concerns over the uptake, authority and effectiveness of science as expressed, for example, in areas such as education, medical/health practice, risk and the environment, and technological innovation. Based on several in-depth case studies, and informed theoretically by the sociology of scientific knowledge, the book shows how the public understanding of science raises questions about the epistemic commitments and institutional structures that constitute modern science. These key aspects are usually ignored in standard treatments of the subject. The book suggests that many of the inadequacies in the social integration and support of science might be overcome if modern scientific institutions were more reflexive and open about the implicit normative commitments embedded in scientific cultures.
Environmental and risk issues are symptomatic of deep-seated social and cultural tensions and transformations in the fabric of contemporary societies. This major contribution to the study of risk, ecology, and the place of social theory in making sense of the environment helps us to understand the politics of ecology and the place of social theory in making sense of environmental issues. The book provides insights into the complex dynamics of change in so-called risk societies. In this volume, the issues of risk and environment are explored at three levels. The contributors offer a critical assessment of dominant institutional ways of thinking and talking about risk and counterpose these with more open, self-critical approaches. They explore individuals' sense of risk and its expression in collective insecurities and they show how political thinking and debate on risk and environmentalism has been, and can further be, transformed. Wide-ranging and accessible, Risk, Environment & Modernity contains contributions from leading scholars, including Ulrich Beck, author of Risk Society. It will rapidly establish itself as the key text in the field and will be required reading by students of sociology, political science, geography, and environmental studies. "This is the strongest edited collection on the relationship between modernity, risk and the environment to be published to date and it deserves a place on the book shelf of every one who takes these issues seriously. Perhaps more importantly this book needs to be read by everyone who thinks that existing responses will ultimately 'solve the environmental problem.' The editors present the collection as a slow manifesto capable of transforming the reductionism and realism they see dominating both natural and social scientific approaches to the environment. In twelve essays, organized into three sections, considerable progress is made toward this ambitious goal. . . . This is a book with an important message one can only hope that it is read and widely debated." --a prepublication review in Environmental Politics
In Rationality and Ritual, internationally renowned expert Brian
Wynne offers a profound analysis of science and technology
policymaking. By focusing on an episode of major importance in
Britain's nuclear history - the Windscale Inquiry, a public hearing
about the future of fuel reprocessing - he offers a powerful
critique of such judicial procedures and the underlying assumptions
of the rationalist approach. This second edition makes available
again this classic and still very relevant work. Debates about
nuclear power have come to the fore once again. Yet we still do not
have adequate ways to make decisions or frame policy deliberation
on these big issues, involving true public debate, rather than
ritualistic processes in which the rules and scope of the debate
are presumed and imposed by those in authority. The perspectives in
this book are as significant and original as they were when it was
written. The new edition contains a substantial introduction by the
author reflecting on changes (and lack of) in the intervening years
and introducing new themes, relevant to today's world of big
science and technology, that can be drawn out of the original text.
A new foreword by Gordon MacKerron, an expert on energy and nuclear
policy, sets this seminal work in the context of contemporary
nuclear and related big technology debates.
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