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Uncertainty, risk and ignorance

SSRN, ISSN: 1556-5068
2021
  • 0
    Citations
  • 1,208
    Usage
  • 4
    Captures
  • 1
    Mentions
  • 13
    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

  • Usage
    1,208
    • Abstract Views
      940
    • Downloads
      268
  • Captures
    4
  • Mentions
    1
    • Blog Mentions
      1
      • Blog
        1
  • Social Media
    13
    • Shares, Likes & Comments
      13
      • Facebook
        13
  • Ratings
    • Download Rank
      228,516

Article Description

The topic of uncertainty, risk and ignorance, and one may add probability, is controversial both across and within professions. While Frank Knight and Maynard Keynes both believed that risk and uncertainty are quite different objects, generations of Bayesian statisticians and economists have attacked this distinction, arguing that the logic of Bayesian calculus can tame uncertainty. What is the ecologists to do when confronted with risk analyses? What to accept and what to refute? The issue in methodological as well as normative – or political. Some of the fathers of the ecological movement have been outspoken in their warning against excesses of quantification, especially when these serve vested interests under the clothing of risk analysis. In addition, how to deal with ignorance? We offer here some simple heuristics to orient the decision; we shall make use of post normal science, uncertainty analysis, NUSAP, sensitivity analysis and sensitivity auditing.

Bibliographic Details

Andrea Saltelli; Jerome R. Ravetz

Elsevier BV

Multidisciplinary; Knightian risk; NUSAP; sensitivity auditing; Bayesian calculus; indeterminacy; post-normal science

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