Abstract
Government is the risk manager of last resort. Science informs the identification of risks and the assessment of options for managing them. Seeking knowledge carries danger, so it is necessary to create the conditions to do so well and safely. Discussion of risk should not be a distraction. Through innovation, science creates both opportunities and risks. Numbers may speak for themselves, but it is essential better to understand what they are saying. The choice of expression is itself something that can be approached with rigour and based on observation. Increasingly, too, it is possible to reflect on how individual decision-making and public debate are informed by specific images and words. Notions of error, and expressions of different types of (un)certainty inform how decisions get made.
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Craig, C. (2019). How to Express Risk, Confidence and (Un)Certainty. In: How Does Government Listen to Scientists?. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96086-9_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96086-9_2
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