Thank you, Doc, but we’ll just go with our instincts
Scientists tell government some pesky facts about drugs; government brushes aside pesky facts, makes decision on other grounds, ‘having taken account of “public perception” and “policing priorities”.’
The refusal to accept the expert views of a council set up to judge the relative harms of different drugs went down badly with the scientific community in general, and Professor Nutt in particular. Today, he warns of the negative consequences of what he calls, a “highly politicised” process…The government view, though, is that they should adopt a precautionary principle. “Where there is… doubt about the potential harm that will be caused, we must err on the side of caution and protect the public,” as Jacqui Smith put it last year. Professor Nutt attacks the ‘safety first’ approach arguing that “it starts to distort the value of evidence and therefore I think it could, and probably does, devalue evidence”. He recalls the scare about the MMR vaccine. “People were concerned, on the basis of false science, that the triple vaccine might cause brain damage. This led to a reduction in vaccination uptake and now children are getting lung and brain damage from measles,” he states. “The precautionary principle with MMR has been clearly shown to be wrong,” he continues. “It has harmed more people than it has helped.”
In other words the precautionary principle isn’t really precautionary, it just seems to be. It seems to be because people so often forget to take into account the risks of doing whatever the alternative is. They think (apparently): MMR, risky; no MMR, no risk. But ‘no MMR’ itself has risks, so thinking all the risk is on one side of the ledger is a mistake.
I am sure most people in government know that the precautionary principle is nonsense. It is the press that is really to blame for refusing to allow any progress on the issue.
Last year I contacted then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith through my own MP to urge the use of empirical evidence in forming drugs policy. I received a response back (in jpeg format!) that made it clear, or as clear as any communication from a politician can be, that truth and justice were purely incidental to writing policy.
A thoroughly dreadful woman, and one of a string of authoritarian New Labour Home Secretaries.
From her Wiki article:
“When I became home secretary, I’d never run a major organisation. I hope I did a good job. But if I did, it was more by luck than by any kind of development of skills. I think we should have been better trained. I think there should have been more induction.”
Incompetent and morally vacuous, it’s the New Labour way!
Martin: I wonder how “I want to became home secretary, but I’ve never run a major organisation. I hope I’ll do a good job despite that. But if I do, it will be more by luck than by any kind of development of skills…” would sit in a campaign speech.
Jenavir: “…the precautionary principle is nonsense.”
Sorry, won’t have that. The Precautionary Principle is in use all the time, and is why we gravitate to the least dangerous option, for example use of an overpass to cross a busy road.
Professor Nutt’s legitimate concern is over which is the least dangerous option.
Ian,
(I assume you meant to address that comment to me) In this context the the Precautionary Principle means refusing to allow something until it has been proven safe. It is used by people who want to ban things they believe to be dangerous without any scientific evidence to back up their views. Their mantra is “why take the risk?”
This was recently put into practice by the EU who are now banning pesticides on the basis or hearsay rather than scientific evidence. This was trumpeted in the press as a victory for environmentalists and consumers.
As I’m sure you know, it is impossible to prove a negative which is why this approach is nonsense. We might as well run around saying Bananas may cause cancer so why take the risk of eating them?
Bananas cause cancer? Why weren’t we told?
Nah, the precautionary principle is nonsense.
It basically says that if a proposed course of action has a chance of causing significant harm, then the burden of proving conclusively that the harm will not occur is on those proposing it.
Problems with this:
1. Zero weight is placed on the harm of inaction.
2. Vulnerable to the use of framing to shift the burden of proof. Portray your opponent as the one advocating action rather than you, and you’ve changed the outcome.
3. In complex systems, like human affairs, its difficult to prove that worries about harm aren’t just alarmism, even when they really are just alarmism. This results in an uneven standard in which those alleging harm can do so on the basis of sheer hysteria (gay marriage will hurt heterosexual marriage, etc), but unattainable degrees of proof are demanded of those who act reasonably.
To give you examples, both of the following are the precautionary principle:
1. Company X wants to release a toxin into a local river. Environmentalists say that the toxin is very dangerous, and might cause irreparable harm to people and the environment. The precautionary principle must be satisfied before Company X can dump the toxin.
2. Company X wants to release a toxin into the local river. Environmentalists want to prohibit Company X from doing this. Company X argues that the prohibition the environmentalists are contemplated could have irreparable harm on the local economy and therefore the local public, and could even be the start of a slippery slope towards even worse national legislation. The environmentalists must prove this will not happen before enacting the legislation.
Jakob: My apologies to both you and Jenavir. I can only put it down to that whisky I poured over my corn flakes this morning. ;-)
The Wikipedia definition of the PP is the one I favour: “…a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action. The principle implies that there is a responsibility to intervene and protect the public from exposure to harm where scientific investigation discovers a plausible risk in the course of having screened for other suspected causes. The protections that mitigate suspected risks can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that more robustly support an alternative explanation. In some legal systems, as in the law of the European Union, the precautionary principle is also a general and compulsory principle of law.”
Notice that this definition does not require the proof of a negative; an agreed impossibility. But it also does not condone the application of the judicial principle of burden of proof, ‘innocent till proven guilty’, to use of say, new agricultural chemicals or GM seed varieties. It is also significantly different from Patrick’s supplied definition.
In the absence of a scientific consensus against it, high level nuclear waste was dumped into the oceans in the ’50s and early ’60s. The dilution effect of the huge volume of ocean water was presumed enough to render it harmless. Then the opposing consensus formed, based on strong evidence, and new ways of dealing with the waste had to be found.
Storing it in repositories of variable security is presently viewed as the course least likely to cause long term and significant harm. But that may change of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
M.M.R risk? what risk? strap them down and shoot them up, its for their own good?
I wish I was surprised by the politicians here, but I’m not. Politics is by its nature, antithetical to science. Science is about fitting your view to the evidence. Politics is about fitting your views to those of the voters.
Besides which, how would a politician with a scientific temperament be treated by the voters? As weak. As a flip-flopper. As a rule, voters want confidence and certainty from their politicians, even when that certainty is vacuous.
Ian, I think you’re rather missing the point. The “precautionary principle” as being described and applied by Jacqui Smith bears no real resemblance to the more rationally formulated version you cite. And, in fact, damned near every time I’ve ever heard anyone actually citing the precautionary principle as an argument, it has been inspired by wild fevers of imagination that had nothing to do with reality, standing in the way of real benefits with no actually demonstrable risk of harm: q.v. everyone who has ever used the term “frankenfoods” and the “OMG the Large Hadron Collider is gonna make black holes that destroy the world” wackaloons. I think that whomever wrote that wikipedia entry was referring to a highly theoretical and abstract version of the precautionary principle rather than the precautionary principle as it is actually used in political rhetoric – as it is used in the article OB linked to by Jacqui Smith.
There was a UK news story last year about how an ex-head of the Anti-Drugs Unit at the Cabinet Office said that he and most of those he worked with (politicians and civil servants) recognize that “war on drugs” policies don’t work.
Even David Cameron called for discussion about this in 2002 (but he won’t be saying so again any time before the next election I would guess).
[There’s a brief account of it all here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/09/the_drug_debate_rumbles_on.html ]
Sadly Stephen you are right this clearly disasterous drug war will continue whichever party wins the election,meanwhile our cities will continue to turn into war zones.
G: Yes, point taken. An excellent reason for demanding that those who use the term ‘precautionary principle’ also supply their choice of definition; from the extensive range available.
The thing that intrests me G.T is that 20 years ago most of the oposition to the drug war was comming from fringe types, now its comming from senior policemen,judges ect but still it continues?
You’re all forgetting that the actual ‘precautionary principle’ at work here is “we must be careful not to piss off the right-wing press any more than we can help”.
Anyone with a further interest in drug policy should find http://www.tdpf.org.uk useful.
A couple of years ago I noticed that the “precautionary principle” is the modern term for what used to be referred to as “Pascal’s Wager”. Every time I’ve seen someone use it to justify something, the analogy has fit perfectly.
Now I mentally replace the words whenever I’m reading.
Oh well, the messenger has been shot for daring to lift the curtain on reality: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/30/david-nutt-drugs-adviser-sacked
Where is Chris Mooney when we need him?!
This piece by Janet Radcliffe-Richards from the last time the government ignored expert advice seems relevant:
http://www.practicalethicsnews.com/practicalethics/2008/04/expert-advice.html
Also, OT but Steve Fuller really is a rude asshole. I’ve met him IRL but his latest blog post is absolutely vile.
Here’s a relevant Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=179667606704