MY ESSAy outline

Clark contends that improving risk management is essentially not a problem of science but of improving management response to risks through policy analysis. Risk management has been referred to as a 'quasi science' and as a 'trans-science' and also a 'social science', and so the debate rages. Clark puts aside these labels as of limited assistance and addresses the central need he sees, which is to evaluate, order and structure uncertain and incomplete knowledge so that the management acts can be chosen with the best usage and possible understanding of current knowledge. Considering risk management as policy analysis with the aim of better guiding management acts would align risk management to a range of established analytical norms, and also turn the spotlight on the institutions that have the ability to run risk investigations. As Clark points out this is a lesson that can be learnt from witch hunting, where little or no members of the church or governing institutions ever had accusations made against them.

Clark looks at the difficulty of establishing a useful perspective from which to assess risk management, fears and our involvement in such, and how this has meant the past risk management is directed to wasteful ends by these underlying perspectives. Risk problems arise from human perceptions, and their fears. He argues that when you are affected by a risk you are unable to evaluate it critically, and if you remove humanity from the analysis then it becomes sterile and unimportant. I would go further than Clark’s argument and suggest that as an assessment risk is based on and created out of human fears, the field is subject to all human flaws. That is, human affliction such as selfishness, greed, prejudices, as well as fears all affect the direction and influence of the risk industry on citizens. An institution is in the position to exploit fears, gaining support and political following by controlling the direction of risk assessment.

Though risk management is not a science per se, there is a need for a fair test within risk assessment. Clark clearly supports a more scientific approach to risk management. With a scientific approach Clark believes we can avoid confusing the feasible from the desirable, as well as avoiding a risk management policy that will only terminate or succeed when a risk is identified. Both these outcomes direct resources in wasteful manner and lead the public and management alike further from any understanding of real risk. Risk assessors of the witch hunt ended up incinerating 500,000 citizens because of a lack of clear framework for such a judgment. This result was probably nothing like what the citizens would consider the aim of the witch hunt was. From my knowledge of econometrics it is clear that in scientific terms, a hypothesis to be tested must have two possibilities, so that when risk assessors look for risk they conversely also investigate for no risk. However, evidence can be interpreted many ways. Data can point towards completely different results depending on how it is filtered, classified and presented. Simply stating that scientific approach should be taken does not mean that the objective results of the risk assessment will ever be revealed. As Liverry shows in his book Making Decisions, the simpsons paradox can result. In the case of uncertainty just one data set analysed in different ways can come up with a variety of conflicting results. With witch hunting, being accused of being a witch was tantamount to conviction, and your only way of disproving being a witch was to survive torture by some means. There was no inbuilt system of defense for the accused, no stopping rule. Clark argues that in risk assessment today often the only stopping rule is discovery of the sought-after affect, and a fair scientific testing method would better control the direction of a risk investigation.

Clark also investigates another way in which risk assessment could be improved through using a grand jury system and implementing rules of evidence would be a significantly more rigorous way of dealing with risk assessment when humans are the risk subject. In thinking this over, I realised that humans would seldom be the object of risk analysis, so this is somewhat more difficult to apply to the possiblity say of a new drug being harmful. This last insight is implied from the historical demise of witch hunting as a profession where y Frias carried out an extensive analysis of witch huntings in and area. He used an approximation of these principles to show most of the accustions were incorrect, and the process had created witches were there was none. Rather than applying the rules of evidence in a court, there should be rules of evidence within risk managament. Formal rules of evidence constitute formal hypothesis on how to best cope with the unknown. Clark points out that there is a highly political background in which risk assessment is operating, which is a brave step, and very important to keep in mind. In the case of witch hunting, institutions benefited from withes being made a scapegoat on which to blame the problems of the day. In the case of medical science, if citizens worship researchers and medical institutions there is the risk of a witch hunt continuing. This can be seen with the boom in alternative medicine, when books like Trick or Treatment critically disprove the scientific value of treatments but the industry continues to grow rapidly. Pharmaceutical companies gain large profits from medicines that may be no more than pure placebo. Further, when politicians use a scientist’s research to speak out on an issue, scientific peer review cannot easily penetrate that arena. Scientists may also be encouraged to speak more confidently on their conclusions than would be warranted within te scientific community, and the reality can be misrepresented/exaggerated to the public without rigorous debate. The findings of risk assessment are easily exaggerated in the media, and a highly politicised society means risk assessment can be skewed in their direction as well as in the representation of the findings.

The issue of causation, witch hunting breeding witches, trying to control pests causing pest related crop losses Clark toys with the idea that there is causal issues within risk management, with the hunt for risks proliferating the risks, but he falls short of making his own determination on whether this is a fundamental problem within risk management. He cites the examples that If risks are indeed created by the hunt for them, isn’t the industry a somewhat unnecessary waste of time? As I will discuss in the next paragraph, the tradition of coping has meant no further risks are created by risk reducing strategies, as nature is left to take its course. This is an inherently pleasing concept which fits with the medical mantra first do no harm. If western society still acted this way the proliferation o the risk management industry would not have been seen to the extent it is. It would be hard to reverse the past Clark refers to the human tradition of coping with unexpected events in comparison with current risk assessment policies. Without providing much evidence as to the efficacy of our old coping techniques, he suggests some improvements that could be made to risk assessment by policy change back towards a policy that is capable of accepting uncertainty rather than trying to beat it. He shows, quite rightly that nature often has the one up on humans, and will always have a twist that policy makers are unprepared for. The point that Clark is making is that this should be taken as given and that the area for improvement here is policy’s ability and management ability to then respond to these unexpected twists. Clark points out that regulating versus not regulating is a pointless debate, and in looking at the US and UK drug regulation industries he supports the approach taken by the latter. Clark emphasises the medical drug industry's interest in increased risk taking abilities rather than decreased risk per se as being a more constructive perspective and meaningful aim for risk management.

Clark’s assessment of current risk management models is that prevailingly they use knowledge-presuming prospective rationality to develop policy. Concepts such as social optimisation and best possible decision making is based on rationality of social acceptance and expert consensus, and is expected to work just because it fit this idea of rationality. This is the opposite of the view clark supports where rationality is a policy that is always self checking and is accepted as the best model because of this fact. Clark supports this with evidence of well established reconstructive approaches taken in other fields such as social psychology and economic theory. Throughout the examples Clark gives us, he notes the progress of risk management away from an individualistic endeavour to something that is now provided by administrative arms of the institutions, for the collective good. Clark suggests that the thousand flowers approach of decentralised policy making and the ability this will give us to learn from a variety of risk responses is valuable. This concept while intriguing and certainly something that appeals, is perhaps too forward thinking and difficult for a sociiety to accpet who feel safer when a collective body looks after them. Further, the idea would not appeal to institutions and central bodies that hold the power to decide overreaching policy. I would suggest willingness to reduce this power is unlikely to be in evidence.

Tufte, adds to the debate hands on policy creation, how data has a central and influential role. He promotes scientific approach also, to both the approach behind gathering data, and how data is graphically presented. How it is presented is critical in a