Ecological Risk Assessments and the Impossibility Theorem: A Commentary on Reforming Australia's Gene Technology Act. N. Linacre, University of Melbourne, Australia
Ecological risk assessment is the process by which we evaluate the risks posed to biological systems from factors causing biological change. Such assessments depend on a detailed understanding of the biological system being modelled and the inherent variability of the system in both time and space. Such procedures allow us to rank risks and, possibly, specify bounds on our risk estimates for different options. Most researchers appear to be primarily concerned with how to quantify and rank risks. Whatever the process we use, simple or complex, to calculate risk and rank options, ultimately decisions about the environment involve some sort of social valuation. Commonly a committee voting process is used to aggregate different individual values into some sort of social value. However, classical risk assessments ignore the process used to aggregate individual values into a social value. I investigate the problem of risk assessment decision-making by expert scientific panel in the case of genetically modified organisms in Australia and show that the decision-making process is subject to Arrow's impossibility theorem. The implication is that control of the agenda of the scientific committee can lead to an imposed outcome by the regulator, potentially independent of the risk assessment. I also suggest a simple way to reform the current Gene Technology Act to address this problem.
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