Dealing with Risk: Why the Public and the Experts Disagree on Environmental Issues

For decades, both policymakers and analysts have been frustrated by sharp and stubborn conflicts between expert and lay perceptions of issues of environmental risk. . . . In "Dealing with Risk," Howard Margolis explores the expert/lay rift surrounding such contentious issues. /// Margolis argues that risk assessment typically involves weighing a broad range of often complicated trade-offs between costs and benefits. As laypersons, however, we are by definition forced to make judgments on complex matters beyond the scope of our normal experience. Especially in cases involving potential danger, we frequently discount nuance and respond more viscerally. Cognitively we fall back on default responses, all-purpose intuitions such as "better safe than sorry" or "nothing ventured, nothing gained." Such intuitions don't admit of careful balancing of pros and cons, and lay opinion consequently becomes polarized and at odds with the expert view. /// Carefully examining the role of intuition, mental habits, and cognitive frameworks in the construction of public opinion, this . . . account moves beyond previous efforts by risk analysts to bridge the expert/lay impasse that has plagued environmental policy.