Science, Risk Management, and the Precautionary Principle. G. Charnley, W. E. Bishop, and E. D. Elliott, HealthRisk Strategies, Procter & Gamble, Yale Law School
The precautionary principle holds that, due to bounded rationality and the law of unintended consequences, it is better to be safe than sorry. From a natural science perspective, that sentiment can be expressed as the belief that false positives, or type I error, are better than false negatives, or type II error. By extension, then, according to the precautionary principle, over-regulation is better than under-regulation. Current regulatory systems in both the US and Europe tend to be consistent with the converse, holding instead (in practice, if not explicitly) that type II error is better than type I error. Both over- and under-regulation have costs. This presentation will examine several examples of the unintended consequences of science-based precautionary risk management decisions to evaluate whether, according to the PP, false positives are better than false negatives. The importance of assessing risk-risk tradeoffs and evaluating proportionality will be highlighted.
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