The ‘Precautionary Principle’ is a well established scientific principle. It is a response to uncertainty, particularly in the face of risks to health or the environment. In general, it involves acting to avoid serious or irreversible potential harm.There may be no evidence to suggest there will be harm, but there may also be no evidence to suggest that there will not be.
When making their cases both those that are ‘for’ certain technologies, and those that are ‘against’, can use this principle to back up their point of view.
Take the recent ‘Wi-Fi’ radiation debate as an example. There are concerns that the level and type of radiation given off by wireless computer systems could have harmful side effects. The chair of the Health Protection Agency, Sir William Stewart, is so concerned he has called for an official investigation, and Professor of human radiation at Bristol University, Dennis Henshaw told the Independent on Sunday ‘The research hasn’t been done. Therefore we cannot assume that there are no effects,’
Yet half of UK primary schools already have wi-fi systems. Phone companies point out that there is no evidence to say that it is not safe. What we do know is that children are more vulnerable to radio frequency radiation emissions than adults, should we be taking the risk ?
As with other debates that involve unproven technologies, such as Genetically Modified food, we must ask some questions: Who will benefit? Who is funding the research? Is it really wanted or needed? In the case of GM food, consumers vote with their wallets. The organic food sector is increasing at twice the rate of the conventional grocery market because people are concerned about food safety, and GM food is absent from the shelves.
Given that, in reality, we know very little about biological and ecological systems, and how it all inter-relates, then how can we be sure that these developments will not affect our health and environment in the future ?
It wasn’t so long ago that DDT was considered a safe pesticide, and cigarettes weren’t harmful to our health.
Personally, I have no desire to be a guinea pig in an open-air global laboratory. It is only by proceeding with caution that we have time to look around us to assess the wider impact of what we are doing – had we been doing so for the last few decades, we might not be in such a mess.

Peter Norton