期刊名称：The Journal of Transdisciplinary Environmental Studies
印刷版ISSN：1602-2297
出版年度：2003
卷号：2
期号：1
出版社：Roskilde Univ
摘要：:The twain, or interface, between public environmental policy making and environmentalscience does not facilitate each other in a constructive and cost-efficient way at present. The precautionaryprinciple can be seen as an attempt to litigate and accelerate this situation. The role of science anduncertainties has been in the focus of the discussion - both for and against - the precautionary principle.Traditionally science, and unfortunately also environmental science, has focused on the reduction of risksfor Type I errors (false positive rejection of the null hypothesis). Lately, the risk of Type II errors (falsenegative, failure to reject the null hypothesis) has been discussed in relation to managing the precautionaryprinciple. However, both these approaches ignore the risk of Type III errors (accurate answer ¨C wrongquestion), a qualitative estimate of the quality of the twain between science and public policy making.This paper, argues that the limitations of precautionary policy making might not solely be a result ofuncertain science, but rather regulatory and scientific negligence of Type III errors, and lack ofinterdisciplinary perception from both the scientific as well as the regulatory communities. This can lead tonon-precautionary decision-making
关键词：Type I; II & III errors; Precautionary principle; Role of science
