Session 9: risk (and intro to science policy)

We started with a debate, asking whether scientists are the best people to make decisions about science policy. If anyone wants to continue/ join this (with ideas on why scientists should or should not be the people to make policy decisions over science) we can start a thread in the comments to this post.

In terms of lecture content, we went through some key ideas in science policy and gave a brief overview of the topic of risk, especially issues of risk reporting in the media. All of this is covered in the handout (see WebCT). If anyone missed the class, read the chapter on "The ABC of Risk" in Gregory & Miller.

If anyone was particularly inspired by the topic of risk, Les Levidow is talking about GM issues at UCL this evening, details here.

I'm sorry if today was a bit rushed, I stupidly planned for a double session. I'm going to turn the activity we didn't get a chance to do (on sensationalism) into a blog entry - watch this space.