Knowledge of risk

Risks exist in nature and in principle can be recognized by scientific measuring and calculating and managed by utilizing the information obtained. However, sometimes laymen disapprove what is considered the ‘appropriate’ or the ‘right’ risk of their knowledge. The responses of laymen to risks are often described being unscientific when they base the knowledge to low-grade and primitive sources such as ‘intuition’. Calculations of experts are the ’objective facts’ of risk which contradict with the ‘subjective facts’ of laymen, which are not considered as accurate as facts by experts, because their conception of risk is unbiased and neutral.⁴⁶

However, from a constructionistic perspective, sociocultural contexts tie all knowledge where the knowledge originates. From this perspective, no knowledge, not even scientific is never value-free but rather is invariably the product of the way of seeing. A risk is continuously constructed and negotiated in social interaction and the formation of meaning;

therefore, it is not in a static space. The judgement of ’expert’ is therefore biased rather than

‘objective’ and ‘neutral’. Both laymen’s and expert’s judgement about a risk are similarly affected by sociocultural processes.⁴⁷

44 Lupton 1999, p. 20-21

45 Lahti – Saarela 1991, p. 307

46 Lupton 1999, p.18-19

47 Lupton 1999, p. 29

There has been a debate over laymen’s over-estimation, under-estimation and the difficulty of using probabilities for some types of risk. For example, psychometric researchers have found that laymen are more likely to estimate that risk is likely to take place if information connected to it is accessible and easily recalled and incline to overemphasize risk related to situations where it can easily be imagined as occurring to oneself. ⁴⁸

The book Gegengifte: die organisierte Unverantwortlichkeit by Ulrich Beck discusses the risk society and modern problems of risk management in societies in quite aggravate manner.

Beck claims that risks have arisen because technological and governmental authority has allowed risks to exist with regulation and other control management methods. He states that what is really dangerous doesn’t exist and what we cannot shut down and control is legal. ⁴⁹ According to Beck science has important meaning in proving the truth when protesting people have to use the techno-scientific language, the same language as the experts have used.⁵⁰

This leads to the situation where people are strongly dependent on the scientific definition of experts, however, the press can take a role by providing more simplified information about risk for people. ⁵¹ When toxicity levels are being re-evaluated based on the latest researches there will be significant changes, for example some groceries might be bad for people. New causal, judicial assessment rules define winners and losers in a new manner. These new rules might collapse if the press starts a campaign or people change their perception habits. ⁵² In the key role of defining the risk it is central who and how they must prove the dangerousness of certain material and emission. It means that victims have to first point out the damage A, then they have to prove that material X causes the damage A. Thirdly, victims have to point out that origin of the material X comes from the company Y. Lastly, they must demand that person Z is responsible for causing the damage which is almost impossible according to Becks and he calls it as the extremely unequal burden to prove. ⁵³

48 Lupton 1990, p. 20

49 Beck 1990, p. 125

50 Beck 1990, p. 96

51 Beck 1990, p. 123

52 Beck 1990, p. 205

53 Beck 1990, p. 190

Beck claims that jurisdiction and legal praxis are lagging in situations where polluters are known but still cases end up on their side. The amount of jurisdiction grows but still the case is about defining the attitude about risks.⁵⁴ On that time, this can be seen from the Finnish Supreme Court case 1998:87 where court conveyed that dangerousness of asbestos has been known ever since 1945 when relevant literatures were published. In the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s nawareness of dangerousness of asbestos dust as causing diseases still common.

In those days, the Finnish health authorities understanding about the dangerousness of asbestos dust is based on the social and health ministry’s approved maximum concentration of asbestos. In this case, the district court looked that company could not be required in retrospect to know the impacts better.

Working class might be in danger when company where they are working is systematically taking risks to achieve maximal incomes despite risks being considerable. This new development creates contradictions between companies and occupational groups. However, the experience and benefits from the company prevent the working class from thinking ecologically, especially in risk dangerous production.⁵⁵

There are alternative interpretations for risks, for example in the reporting of accidents and disasters in oil drilling in the North Sea has blamed rough seas even though accidents and disasters might have been avoided with better working methods and equipment. Beck refers to this as the anchoring heuristic that has been used when the starting point of reporting has been numbers of dangerousness of drilling action, even though in reality during drilling happened only one third of fatal accidents.⁵⁶

The discussion about risks highlights the evaluation mistakes made by laymen whereas the experts’ reports are taken notice on decision-making by government and companies. An important characteristic in risk debate is that it highlights the exaggeration of risks when indifference is far more dangerous. Perhaps if the experts have stated that factory or equipment is safe other impressions are false. If the change of risk is calculated and found minor the concerned laymen will calculate incorrectly.⁵⁷

54 Beck 1990, p. 193

55 Beck 1990, p. 209-213

56 Kamppinen et al. 1995, p. 86

57 Kamppinen et al. 1995, p. 90

Table 1. Slovic’s perception of risk in the modern technological development ⁵⁸

Slovic has created a risk map about individual and society perspective, the division of these, joint relations, and role of risks in broader environment. The risk map is divided into four sectors based on uncertainty and emotional division: dread – safe and knowability – unknown. ⁵⁹ The basis of Slovic’s perception of risk in the modern technological development is that it has created chemical and nuclear technologies which have potential to cause an environmental disaster that has an impact on the people in a long range. The analytic expert applies risk assessment to evaluate hazards, normally named “risk perceptions.” These complex technologies are not known well by the laymen. Significant influence on present understanding about risk perception is based on geography, political science, sociology, psychology, and anthropology. ⁶⁰ These disciplines focus on a different points of view; geography focuses on understanding the human behavior when facing hazards⁶¹, sociological and anthropological perspectives focus on how perception and acceptance of risk is connected to social and cultural elements, and psychological approach focuses on how close ones and family convey how the hazard is experienced.⁶² Slovic places

58 Slovic 1987

59 Kamppinen et al. 1995, p. 98-99

60 Slovic 1987, p. 280-281

61 Burton et al. 1993, p. 30

62 Short 1984, p. 711

asbestos in the map of risk perception to an unknown risk like pesticides that are dreadful but not as dreadful as nuclear reactor accidents.⁶³