Scientific expertise in relation to risk and uncertainty

Abstract

Scientific knowledge used to assist decision-makers is a valuable resource. However, expertise is not immune to political appropriation, and has its own epistemic limitations. It is therefore questionable to regard expertise as the only method of ensuring that any given decision is legitimate. In this connection, it makes a difference whether experts carry out their scientific analysis on the basis of a probabilistic conception of risk, or on a different basis which takes uncertainties and ignorance into account.