Sunday, February 13, 2011

"Substance X causes cancer in animals...."

Consider two statements, S1 and S2: S1: ‘‘Would you agree or disagree that the way an animal reacts to a chemical is a reliable predictor of how a human would react to it?’’

The second statement, S2, is a little more specific: ‘‘If a scientific study produces evidence that a chemical causes cancer in animals, then we can be reasonably sure that the chemical will cause cancer in humans.’’

How did you respond? How would a scientist respond?

from P. Slovic, ‘‘Trust, Emotion, Sex, Politics, and Science: Surveying the Risk-Assessment Battlefield,’’ in Environment, Ethics, and Behavior, M. H. Bazerman, D. M. Messick, A. E. Tenbrunsel, and K. A. Wade-Benzoni (eds.) (San Francisco, New Lexington, 1997), pp. 277–313.


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