Is the precautionary principle anti-science?

The precautionary principle has been criticised for being unscientific and of marginalising the roll of science.²⁶⁴ It has even been accused of being “anti-science”.²⁶⁵

The Precautionary Principle tells us not to wait for incontestable scientific proof of the dangerousness of a process before we take action against it. This clearly looks like the principle urges us to pay less attention to science – at least when we are short of time. Is not this an unscientific – not to say anti-scientific – way of making decisions compared to the more traditional method of scientifically analysing the risks and putting the probabilities into a cost/benefit-analysis? Not necessarily. The latter method works best when we have virtually the knowledge we need.²⁶⁶ The question we have to answer is what to do when we do not have the information we need.

As we saw in section 3.2, there are different strategies for dealing with insufficient knowledge. Two of the strategies involve that we do not intervene until we know more. This may well be the most prudent choice in some situations of imperfect knowledge, for instance if we are in an acceptable situation and suspect that any change can cause serious damage if it is not properly thought through. However, not all situations are like that. As we saw before, it is not uncommon that quite severe problems have been allowed to go on and in some cases to become even worse because we have waited for better evidence. In situations like that, the strategy of waiting for better knowledge does not seem like a good idea.

An alternative strategy presented in section 3.2 was to act from the best available information and hope it is correct. We saw then however that there are serious drawbacks in the form of risks that we do not do anything to protect us from.

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265 Grandjean 2004 pp.209,214

266 Grandjean 2004 p.203

The fourth alternative was to use the precautionary principle. The way we have interpreted the principle, it tells us to be aware that sometimes being too late is at least as problematic as being wrong, and therefore we need to adjust our decisions along the “being-right/being-in-time” scale. The adjusting should be made according to how important it is to be in time relative to how important it is to be right in relation to the values at stake, in the situation we are dealing with.

This is obviously not an easy judgement to make, but it is none the less routinely done by various decision makers. It is quite obvious that this kind of judgement cannot always be correct. However, if we abstain from making a decision and assume that being right is the only important thing, then we have deliberately excluded an indisputably important dimension of the decision, and it is hard to see how that could be an improvement.

What is important as well is that the precautionary principle does not belittle the importance of being right. It claims that it is sometimes even more important to be in time. It is so to speak better to be approximately right and in time than being absolutely right but too late. ²⁶⁷

It is also important to note that the precautionary principle does not tell us to stop searching for a better understanding.²⁶⁸ An important implication of the concept of precaution is that decisions should be reviewed periodically in the light of new scientific findings.²⁶⁹ This may even lead to more – not less – research being done.²⁷⁰ It could therefore be argued that in this respect, the precautionary principle is promoting science rather than opposing it. Without the precautionary principle, we have the opposite situation: As long as we lack sufficient knowledge things go on as usual. This gives an advantage to those who do not produce sufficient data to make a risk analysis,²⁷¹ which in turn seems to be a tempting incentive to block scientific progress. More research might find out that what we are doing is dangerous. As long as we do not know, we can go on as usual. This is especially tempting in the frequently occurring cases where those who benefit from the practice are not the same as those who run the risks if the practice turns out to be dangerous.

The precautionary principle does not stand in the way of science but advices us on what to do about a problem while we wait for the new information and the better

267 Grandjean 2004 p.211

268 In fact in the EU interpretation it is explicitly stated that “scientific research shall be continued”. See Grandjean 2004 p.206

269 Grandjean 2004 pp.210,214, Lin 2001 p.131, Sandin 2004:1 p.10

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271 Grandjean 2004 p.208

understanding. There must reasonably be a policy for that – apart from the policy about improving knowledge. The time we have to wait for better knowledge is sometimes quite long, and what happens during that time may have rather far reaching consequences. I cannot see that it is more rational to have decision makers sitting down in inertia than to have them act in the most rational manner possible during the time it takes the scientists to form a better understanding of the situation. If we see someone drowning and wait until we are absolutely sure that she will in fact drown if we do not help her, then we will probably not get there in time to save her. If our criteria are really strict, we may not even be convinced until we have seen her drown – and then it is definitely too late. I believe that in good decision-making we always have to weigh the advantages of high certainty of the decision against the advantages of acting fast. True, acting on incomplete knowledge can worsen the situation, but so can inertia as we have seen. Therefore, we return to the question: Which aspect – the being-right aspect or the being-in-time aspect – is the most important one in the situation given the values at stake? The precautionary principle lets the being-in-time aspect enter the procedure without excluding the being-right aspect.

It could be argued that just by letting in the “being-in-time” aspect we do in fact marginalise science by allowing for the possibility of moving our priorities at least to some extent away from the “being-right” aspect. It is also quite reasonable to believe that the quality of the decision will decrease if we base it on less scientific evidence.²⁷² It can therefore not be denied that the precautionary principle to some extent diminishes the role of science and that this is bad. We have to remember however that not using the precautionary principle diminishes the time aspect and that this is bad. We are therefore back to the conclusion in 3.3.4: Both being-right, and being-in-time is instrumentally valuable.

Sandin et al also point out that the term ‘unscientific’ can be interpreted in a weak way and in a strong way. A decision is according to this distinction unscientific in the weak way if it does not build on scientific evidence, while it is unscientific in the strong sense if it disregards scientific evidence. Since the precautionary principle tells us what to do in situations where there is insufficient scientific evidence to build on or disregard, it is unscientific in the weak sense of the word, but not in the strong sense.²⁷³

We should also point out that not using the precautionary principle and doing nothing until we are totally sure, would in fact also be unscientific in the weak sense. It tells us to

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273 Sandin et al 2002 pp.295f

make a certain decision (in this case to wait) that is not based on science (remember that the reason for the suggested inertia is that we lack scientific evidence).