Book Review : Warding Off Technological Calamities

Averting Catastrophe: Strategies for Regulating Risky Technologies by Joseph G. Morone and Edward J. Woodhouse (University of California: $17.95)

In Woody Allen’s movie, “Sleeper,” Woody, the title character, wakes up 200 years in the future and finds people smoking as many cigarettes as possible, sometimes two at a time.

When he asks about this, he is told, “Haven’t you heard? Science has found that smoking is good for you.”

This little vignette expresses a certain confusion and frustration people have about many scientific efforts to identify the risks that supposedly dangerous technologies and substances actually present. Does saccharin cause cancer? How harmful are very low levels of radiation?--if they are harmful at all. Are microwaves a danger? Do the toxic chemicals make New York’s Love Canal uninhabitable?

In each of these cases, there was an initial assertion based on scientific data that led to actions to protect the public welfare. But subsequent analysis turned up different data that led to different conclusions and implied, at least, that the public policy may have been wrong.

Skeptical Attitude

In addition to the debate about the specific issues, these episodes lead to skepticism about the whole scientific enterprise and the ability of “experts” to reach reliable conclusions. After a while, it all begins to sound like the psychiatric testimony in a high-publicity trial. One side’s psychiatrists say the defendant is crazy as a loon, and the other side says he’s as sane as you or me. Don’t any of these people know what they’re talking about?

This question is of more than academic interest. In a world that is largely defined by high technologies, it is essential to know which of those technologies is risky and how serious the risks are. But if the experts can’t agree, some people will just throw up their hands in despair while others argue that in the face of uncertainty, the most cautious strategy should be adopted.

In “Averting Catastrophe,” Joseph G. Morone, a political scientist who works for General Electric, and Edward J. Woodhouse, who teaches at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, have tackled this subject through five case studies: toxic chemicals, nuclear power, genetic engineering, the threat to the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect.

Their analysis demonstrates that the cases should not be lumped together as one. Each is different from a public policy point of view, and each requires a different strategy. The authors make perceptive observations, distill important lessons and offer sensible recommendations for future policies and institutional structures.

Some Admiration

Toward the end of the book, Morone and Woodhouse say that though they started out skeptical of society’s ability to manage dangerous technologies, their study led them to conclude that things are not nearly as bad as they thought, and they developed some admiration for society’s ad hoc success in this area. To date in this country, there has not been a major technological catastrophe on the order of Bhopal or Chernobyl.

“The United States has done much better at averting health and safety catastrophes than most people realize,” they write, “considering the vast scope and magnitude of the threats posed by the inventiveness of science and industry in the twentieth century.”

The only drawback to this otherwise estimable volume is that the authors seem to think that reason is the controlling explanation of human affairs. They say early on that they are not going to discuss the political aspects of these debates over technology, but the reader is left to wonder why not. After all, science cannot resolve most of these issues now or at any time in the foreseeable future.

Oddly, Morone and Woodhouse recognize the limitations of science in this area. They tell us repeatedly that the key question in the regulation of technology is “How safe is safe enough?” But this is essentially a political question. One can study science and do experiments from today till doomsday without being able to answer the question, “What level of risk is acceptable?”

How Safe or Dangerous

A litmus test to people’s feelings about high technology is the Three Mile Island nuclear-power accident. It is still not clear whether that incident shows how dangerous nuclear power is or how safe it is. The potential for catastrophe was certainly there, but in the event, despite major malfunctions by men and equipment, the actual threat to public health was minuscule. Yet the words Three Mile Island continue to be infused with a sense of “Oh, the horror of it all.”

People have worried about machinery since before the Industrial Revolution. For example, the Medieval Jewish myth of the golem, a clay creature that had to be destroyed when it ran amok, shows how uneasy many people are with mechanical objects that have great power. The Frankenstein monster is a more-recent expression of the same sentiment.

But Morone and Woodhouse approach this subject as if it were dominated by rational thought. To be sure, scientists try their best to pin down the facts of risk and to identify the appropriate ways to handle it. But, as Morone and Woodhouse amply note, the uncertainties cannot be eliminated.

While it is true that everyone agrees that a major release of radiation from a nuclear power plant would be a bad thing, in other issues, such as the greenhouse effect, there is considerable disagreement about whether there is any threat at all.

Nor is there any consistency among policy makers or most of the public on how much weight to give to the uncertainties. President Reagan, for example, thinks that the uncertainties regarding nuclear power are insignificant and should be ignored. But until recently, under prodding from his friend Michael K. Deaver, he thought that the uncertainties regarding acid rain were very significant and that no steps should be taken until more studies had been done.

Reverse View

His opponents see things just the reverse. To them, the uncertainties of nuclear power demand a halt to that technology, while the uncertainties about acid rain are insignificant.

The conclusion, of course, is that as in most things, people reach conclusions first and assemble the appropriate reasons second. Thus, if you want to push a particularly technology ahead--say, genetic engineering--you argue that the uncertainties are small and insignificant. If, on the other hand, you want to stop a technology, you say that there are too many uncertainties that need to be resolved.

This should come as no surprise to students of public policy, which includes Morone and Woodhouse. Their book is valuable as far as it goes, and there is much to commend it. It would be more valuable if they hadn’t concluded that politics was irrelevant to the discussion.