A Novel Approach to the Appraisal of Technological Risk: A Multicriteria Mapping Study of a Genetically Modified Crop
By Andrew Stirling, S. Mayer. 2001
163 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The recent controversy over genetically modified (GM) foods amply demonstrates the general difficulties encountered in the social appraisal of technological risk. Existing procedures for regulatory appraisal neglect many possible forms of impact and routinely exclude important cultural and social dimensions of risk. A narrow, expert, ‘science-based’ approach is now widely acknowledged to be insufficient. There is a need for new approaches that are more broadly based, transparent, pluralistic and ready to acknowledge uncertainty as well as being practically feasible and robust. The authors investigate the potential for a novel ‘multicriteria mapping’ (MCM) method as one such possible tool. Drawing on a variety of perspectives in the current UK debate, a range of agricultural strategies for the production of oilseed rape, including both GM and non-GM options were explored in this MCM pilot exercise. The results demonstrate the general feasibility and positive potential of this type of approach, with specific findings providing modest insights for policymaking in this difficult area.
Subfields: Genetics, Molecular Biology, Plant Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/13268c5269e62c7d4a61f61b4f40a14f64b2adc6
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In Genetics
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Citations in the corpus
- Transferring environmental value estimates: Issues and alternatives (2006, background): “MCA can be used to explain reasons for conflict between stakeholders (Munda, 1995) and to unravel such things as judgements on genetically modified crops (Stirling and Mayer, 2001).”
- The Shallow or the Deep Ecological Economics Movement (2013, background): “…can handle incommensurability of values, while probing and making explicit value differences, are necessary, e.g., disaggregated multi-criteria analysis and multi-criteria mapping (Martinez-Alier et al., 1998; Munda, 2004; Spash et al., 2005; Stagl, 2007; Stirling, 1997; Stirling and Mayer, 2001).”