Precautionary – Proactionary

My colleagues J. Britt Holbrook and Adam Briggle have encouraged and helped to inaugurate a preprint service at the Review and Reply Collective for the journal Social Epistemiology. The first preprint to appear is their new collaborative piece which “explores the relationship between knowledge (in the form of scientific risk assessment) and action (in the form technological innovation) as they come together in policy.” The piece is well worth the time, and I hope that folks will have a few helpful replies for them

How are knowledge and action related? This question is asked less often than another: When do we know enough to justify taking action? In the context of making science and technology policy, the question assumes yet a different form: When do we have sufficient scientific risk assessments about a new technological activity to warrant promoting that activity and embedding it in society? In this paper, we explore how the relation between knowledge and action should be structured in policymaking…

via Knowing and acting: The precautionary and proactionary principles in relation to policy making, J. Britt Holbrook and Adam Briggle « Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective.