Contesting risk

Intellectuals in the 18th century were optimistic about the future, arguing that the accumulation of human knowledge through science would enable humanity to control and exploit nature and create just and rational societies. In France, there was a project to bring together all human knowledge in a single document or encyclopaedia. This encyclopaedia subtitle, ‘a reasoned dictionary of science, arts and crafts’, was perhaps the most visible part of the Enlightenment or Age of Reason, an intellectual movement which aimed to liberate humanity from the fear engendered by ignorance, superstition and religion through rational and critical thinking based on scientific knowledge (Duignan, 020). An important element of the Enlightenment was the growth of public discourse in learned societies, academic journals and newspapers, which provided a space where knowledge and ideas could be exchanged and tested (Habermas, 1989, pp. 36–7). Science and scientific knowledge still command substantial prestige and support in contemporary society as symbols of modernity and progress, but the optimism is now tempered. Science and technology can stimulate fear and anxiety. As Perrow (984) observed in his study of high-risk technologies, scientific knowledge enables modern societies to build sophisticated and complex systems that are also highly risky and prone to accidents, resulting in human harm. The most obvious example of such systems are nuclear power stations. Hospitals are also prone to such ‘normal accidents’.