ABSTRACT
One hypothesis often held by researchers and by people engaged in practical communication with the public is that pessimistic risk judgments, which lead to fears or so-called acceptance problems of modern technologies, are caused by insufficient knowledge about the sources of risk and their impacts. Differences between risk judgments arrived at by laypeople and risk judgments arrived at by experts are often attributed mainly to knowledge differences between the two groups. The more scientific and technological knowledge laypeople have, so the argument goes, the better they should be able to assess technologies in a rational way and come to conclusions similar to those of technological experts. Furthermore, if conflicts between experts surface, they are often explained away by distinguishing between “real” and “self-appointed” experts.
