| Governance of infectious disease risks requires understanding of often indeterminate interactions between diverse, complex, open, and dynamic human and natural systems. In the face of these challenges, worldwide policy making affords disproportionate status to “ science-based” risk-assessment methods. These reduce multiple, complex dimensions to simple quantitative parameters of “outcomes” and “probabilities,” and then re-aggregate across diverse metrics, contexts, and perspectives to yield a single ostensibly definitive picture of risk. In contrast, more precautionary or participatory approaches are routinely portrayed as less rigorous, complete, or robust. Yet, although conventional... |
