ABSTRACT
Scientific inventions and technologies, such as nanotechnology, interact with complex ecological and social systems at multiple levels and have the potential to cause novel, unprecedented consequences. Policymakers rely to a significant extent on expert scientific advice when evaluating and making decisions about emerging technologies. This privileged role for science in decision-making is generally based on a belief that science offers objective knowledge, free from the influence of particular values, interests or beliefs. In a widely cited social science thesis, Ulrich Beck has suggested that risk is the dominant organising principle of modern western societies. According to Beck’s thesis, in modern western societies have become increasingly aware of how the application of science and technology can be accompanied by unintended adverse effects and subsequently, increasingly concerned with how to handle the problems resulting from technological development. According to Prigogine unpredictability is a key feature of complex systems.
