Product Description: DNA Barcoding has been promoted since 2003 as a new, fast, digital genomics-based means of identifying natural species based on the idea that a small standard fragment of any organism’s genome (a so-called ‘micro-genome’) can faithfully identify and help to classify every species on the planet...read more

This book analyses the treatment of uncertainties within risk management and regulation for hazardous wastes, in five national case-studies. It is shown that, although institutional uncertainties vary between national political cultures, regulatory bureaucracies everywhere understate these more fundamental uncertainties (which are often structural conflicts, of different rationalities) and define them instead as marginal technical uncertainties or imprecision in risk-definitions. Close comparative analysis shows that technical regulatory standards depend upon their local institutional setting in systematic ways, so that conventional regulatory emphasis on technical precision or standardisation should be replaced by greater social negotiation, and educated public involvement and control. Readers will find the book valuable for its novel analytical approach especially in relation to public acceptance issues, and the argument for fresh practical approaches derived from this; in addition there is new information and analysis from the descriptive materials in case studies. Its main aim is to stimulate fresh thinking and approaches to an urgent problem.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

This volume brings together authors from diverse experiences and analytical traditions, encouraging a conversation between science and technology and development studies around issues of science, citizenship and globalization. The book reflects on the nature of expertise; the framing of knowledge; processes of public engagement; and issues of rights, justice and democracy. Different case studies cover issues ranging from medical genetics, agricultural biotechnology, occupational health and HIV/AIDS in settings including rural Sierra Leone, urban Britain, China, South Africa, India and Brazil.

Misunderstanding Science? offers a challenging new perspective on the public understanding of science. In so doing, it also challenges existing ideas of the nature of science and its relationships with society. Its analysis and case presentation are highly relevant to current concerns over the uptake, authority, and effectiveness of science as expressed, for example, in areas such as education, medical/health practice, risk and the environment, technological innovation. Based on several in-depth case-studies, and informed theoretically by the sociology of scientific knowledge, the book shows how the public understanding of science questions raises issues of the epistemic commitments and institutional structures which constitute modern science. It suggests that many of the inadequacies in the social integration and uptake of science might be overcome if modern scientific institutions were more reflexive and open about the implicit normative commitments embedded in scientific cultures. (view table of contents)

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Product Description: The first extended analysis of scientific expertise in legal decision-making. Smith and Wynne extend the sociology of scientific knowledge to explore expertise and decision-making in areas from forensic science to health and safety law...read more