The role of risks and uncertainties in technological conflicts: three strategies of constructing ignorance

Abstract

How are the conflicts over the use of certain technologies – such as biotechnology, nuclear energy or nanotechnologies – being solved? What are the methods used by conflicting parties to assert their definitions of reality? What role do uncertainties and risks play in these conflicts? How are they treated? What strategies are used by proponents and opponents of a controversial technology to persuade the public and decision-makers? This article aims at finding answers to these questions by looking at technological conflicts from the perspective of the reduction of risks and uncertainty. The lesson drawn from the study of ongoing and past conflicts over controversies in technological development should help to better understand the dynamics of conflicts focused on converging technologies. The reduction of uncertainty is analyzed from the perspective of the sociology of non-knowledge and ignorance. It is argued that new areas of non-knowledge are being created by reducing uncertainty and risks in technological conflicts.

Keywords:

• risk
• technological conflicts
• uncertainty
• ignorance
• non-knowledge
• controversies

Acknowledgements

This publication was written with support from the Foundation for Polish Science.

Notes

1. For a discussion of ignorance from a different research perspective, cf. Luhmann (1992), Merton (1987), Proctor (1995) and Sojak and Wicenty (2005).

2. This is why Wehling is reluctant to equate ignorance with risk. He thinks that risk, i.e. the probability that certain consequences will take place, is situated within the cognitive horizon of science because science must first identify these possible consequences; ignorance, meanwhile, also involves a lack of knowledge concerning the possible consequences of actions. Hence risk is scientifically-founded and, although it involves a considerable amount of uncertainty, this is not pure ignorance (Wehling 2004, pp. 70–71).

3. See Public Library of Science (PLoS) neglected tropical diseases, www.plosntds.org.

4. A similar case took place for many years in Poland due to Kazimierz Grabek, the monopolist in the production of gelatin, who successfully lobbied for bans on imports or higher customs duties on gelatin or its components under the pretext of the risk of mad cow disease.