Quantum Forest logs are written by Luis A. Apiolaza in Christchurch, New Zealand.
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After being flamed in Tasmanian Times due to my previous post , I sent the following reply:
I am sorry to disappoint some of my correspondents, but the precautionary principle is not one of the pillars of modern science, despite its Often Capitalised Name. In addition, I did provide a link with a proper definition and discussion of the principle, actually, one of the plethora of definitions that populate internet. My interpretation of the principle was used to characterise the no-to-whatever attitude so prevalent in Tasmania.
I am also familiar with the principle; in fact, I even contributed to write part of the page that I linked to, particularly the mention to ignoring opportunity costs. As such, the principle is favoured by many people with a static rather than a dynamic view of the world, who put a large emphasis on the potential negative effects without consideration to the potential again benefits of a technology. Some people would like to have proof that [insert your pet topic here] does not have a negative effect. Sorry, it is not possible to prove that, and even our legal system uses not guilty rather than innocent when dealing with evidence. You will also find many scientists, not only in industry, who are not big fans of the principle.
I would propose the following thought exercise for supporters of the principle. Let’s suppose that we are in the 1940s and that we need to decide if we should go ahead with the green revolution, i.e., the increase on the use of fertilisers, pesticides and genetically improved varieties for food production. If we had applied the precautionary principle, we would still be waiting to see if we should implement the revolution. As a result, we would have had hundreds of millions of people dying of starvation and much larger areas of land converted from forests to agricultural land in a vane attempt to feed them. Some may argue that this is the wise way to go but, of course, they are not part of the people struggling to survive. The green revolution had both positive and negative effects, but judging technology based only on its negative effects ignoring the cost of making a decision certainly does not sound wise to me.
Going back to the Scammell report, it seems that many people participating in the debate confuse correlation and causation. The fact that two variables are associated does not mean that one is causing the other. An exercise for the reader would be to plot house prices on year or number of interstate visitors on year. You will get a similar relationship to the one on number of plantations shown in the report. I do not see anybody suggesting that tourism or real estate prices are responsible for the fate of oysters. Returning to the Percival report, is it too painful to read and understand its conclusions?
PS (6 August 2004): On 2nd August, the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment (DPIWE) released a Review of the Scammell Report (PDF 234 KB). The executive summary starts:
The Scammell report is an unscientific report that provides no evidence of a link between aerial spraying of chemicals in the George River catchment and either oyster deaths in Georges Bay or Devil Facial Tumours. Furthermore, the report provides no evidence of contamination of water supplies and no evidence to support its alarmist calls for a ban on aerial spraying either in the catchment, or more generally.
This is the second review of the report with the same conclusions, and even yesterday’s The Mercury editorial comments on the low quality of the report.
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