Aaron Wildavsky - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Wildavsky
QUOTE
Wildavsky was a noted scholar on budgeting and budget theory. He is associated with the idea of incrementalism in budgeting, meaning that the most important predictor of a future political budget is the prior one; not a rational economic or decision process undertaken by the state. His book Politics of the Budgetary Process was named by the American Society for Public Administration as the third most influential work in public administration in the last fifty years. In Searching for Safety (1988), Wildavsky argued that trial and error, rather than the precautionary principle, is the best way to manage risks. He noted that rich, technologically advanced societies were the safest, as measured by life expectancy and quality of life. Precautionary approaches to approving new technology are irrational, he said, because they demand that we know whether something is safe before we can do the very tests that would demonstrate its safety or dangerousness. Furthermore, precaution eliminates the benefits of new technology along with the harms. He advocated enhancing society's capacity to cope with and adapt to the unexpected, rather than trying to prevent all catastrophes in advance.Wildavsky was a prolific author, writing or co-writing thirty-nine books and numerous journal articles, including important works on the budgetary process, policy analysis, political culture, foreign affairs, public administration, and comparative government. Wildavsky was the recipient of the 1996 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, with Max Singer.
Wildavsky argued that a mixed strategy of anticipation and resilience is optimal for managing risk. Anticipation is beneficial, but if employed as the sole strategy the law of diminishing returns makes is unattractive, impractical, impossible and even counter productive (it consumes resources better spent on resilience). We should accept to live with small accidents and mishaps and not try to prevent all future hazards. He argued that adding safety devices to nuclear power plants beyond a certain point would be detrimental to safety.[2] This critique is a fundamental attack on the precautionary principle.
UNQUOTE
He sounds sensible.
Precautionary_principle
QUOTE
The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.This principle allows policy makers to make discretionary decisions in situations where there is the possibility of harm from taking a particular course or making a certain decision when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking. The principle implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the public from exposure to harm, when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk. These protections can be relaxed only if further scientific findings emerge that provide sound evidence that no harm will result.
In some legal systems, as in the law of the European Union, the application of the precautionary principle has been made a statutory requirement.
UNQUOTE
The idea sounds reasonable at first glance. It is not however.