THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE PROJECT

ONLINE CONSULTATION

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Sources of uncertainty

From: Christian Lopez-Silva
Affiliation: Sheffield Institute of Biotechnological Law and Ethics
Remote Name: dyn070175.shef.ac.uk
Time: 15:44:37 +0100

Comments

Guideline #4 should make reference to the issue of sources of uncertainty. The sources of uncertainty regarding the environmental and social effects seem to be different. This is important for methodological reasons as well as for the trade dimension (see other comment on this). For instance, according to a report on the effects over the presence of GM maize in Mexico (Bellon, Thompson and Tzotzos 2003): “Social sources of uncertainty cannot be eliminated by conducting more scientific studies”. http://www.cec.org/files/pdf/Maize-Biodiversity-Chapter8_en.pdf Some experts refer to at least the following sources of uncertainty: 1)Reducible ignorance – we don’t know what we don’t know 2)Irreducible ignorance- we can’t know 3)Indeterminacy- we will never know 4)Inexactness- we roughly know The environmental and social effects seem to fall into the second or third source.