The risk assessment process, values and evidence: A case study on transgenic fish.

摘要

There is a complicated setting for the introduction of transgenic fish: they are a new, controversial technology being introduced into an unstable, unstudied natural environment. Risk assessment bears the burden of establishing and managing the evidence needed for appropriate policy formation. I intend to look at these relationships with an eye on the interplay between value considerations (normally attributed to the policy and management side) and evidential/fact considerations (commonly held to be found on the assessment, modelling side). It can be shown that the nature/culture dichotomy seems to blur in the creation of biotechnology, and that the fact/value dichotomy collapses in its assessment. Ecological modelling, contentious evidence to begin with, serves as evidence in ecological risk assessment. I hope to show that policy bias is affecting this evidence (the models), the assessment (where the models fit in risk schemes), and the policies.