ABSTRACT
In the context of the European regulation of science and technology, the precautionary principle has been used to provide a wide protection of the health of human beings, animals, plants and the environment. Initially aimed at framing potential risks as actual risks because ‘lack of full scientific certainty’ may lead to ‘threats of serious or irreversible damage’, the precautionary principle has gradually evolved toward a more complex and stratified concept. In fact, while its major epistemological achievement consisted in shifting the focus from certainty to uncertainty in the vision of science, and from a neutral legal attitude towards scientific uncertainty to a positive bias towards safety, its limits were shown in its paternalistic and discretional implementation, and in its failure to describe uncertainty as integral to the daily life of technological societies.
