Science, public participation and spin

Abstract

This chapter deals with the relationship between scientific research, government regulation and public perceptions of risk. Two issues that have had a significant public profile and engendered vigorous debate will be discussed to show how the specific dimensions of these varied approaches to the perception of risk unfold. The two issues chosen to illustrate the contradictory and positioned nature of analytical approaches and risk evaluations used by the government, science institutions and the public are dioxin contamination of the environment and its subsequent contested health effects, and conventional versus organic food production and the relationship between these production methods and the consumption of pesticide residues by the general public (once again as an issue concerning public perceptions of health). In each case, scientific research will be discussed to show important ways the science informing wider debates on these topics is a contested field.