Topoi (2018) 37:55–66
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9407-y
Scientific Expertise: Epistemic and Social Standards—The
Example of the German Radiation Protection Commission
Martin Carrier1 • Wolfgang Krohn1
Published online: 13 July 2016
 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract In their self-understanding, expert committees
solely draw on scientific knowledge to provide policy
advice. However, we try to show, first, on the basis of
material related to the German Radiation Protection
Commission that much of their work consists in active
model building. Second, expert advice is judged by criteria
that diverge from standards used for judging epistemic
research. In particular, the commitment to generality or
universality is replaced by the criterion of specificity, and
the value of precision gives way to epistemic robustness.
Third, non-epistemic considerations are included in the
reasoning—albeit hesitantly. Manageability and social
robustness, understood as compatibility with widespread
value attitudes in society, affect the content of the
recommendations.
Keywords Scientific expertise
Epistemic and non-
epistemic standards for expert advice
Science and
society
Radiation protection commission
1 Scientific Expertise in Society
We use the term ‘‘scientific expertise’’ in a terminological
sense to designate science-based assessments of and rec-
ommendations for problems that are considered important
& Martin Carrier
martin.carrier@uni-bielefeld.de
Wolfgang Krohn
wolfgang.krohn@uni-bielefeld.de
1 consists of scientists from the relevant disciplines (such as
Department of Philosophy, Institute for Interdisciplinary
Studies of Science (I2SoS), Bielefeld University,
P.O.B. 100 131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany
from an extra-scientific point of view. Thus, the term is
understood in a rather narrow way and is intended to define
attempts to deal with problems that arise within a practical
context on the basis of scientific knowledge. Speaking
generally, we distinguish between three types of experts:
technical, professional, and scientific. Technical experts
apply a fixed canon of rules to cases that are rather similar
in kind. Consider the food control routines performed by
health authorities or the regular examination of motorcars.
Technical experts operate by the books and don’t need to
employ a lot of discretion. Professional expertise is asso-
ciated with the work of physicians, lawyers, managers etc.,
in which dealing with particular cases is at the focus of
attention and in which rules and general knowledge are of
little help for handling them appropriately. Instead, pro-
fessional experts proceed on the basis of exemplars, para-
digms (in the pre-Kuhnian sense) or precedents (Krohn
2008, 2010). Scientific expertise is based on scientific
knowledge and responds to demands from society—in
particular, politics, economy, and the general public—on
how to deal with concrete, typically unprecedented prob-
lems. Frequently, such advice is elaborated by expert
committees. Such committees contribute to devising, say,
national energy supply systems or advise governments
about economic policies. Scientific expertise is deeply
influential on the lives of many Western citizens.
We want to elucidate characteristic features of scientific
expertise. Our example is the German Radiation Protection
Commission, the Strahlenschutzkommission (SSK), which
is appointed by the German government and is supposed to
give advice regarding risks arising from the exposure to
ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. The commission
medicine, physics, and engineering). They are expected to
give their ‘‘independent’’ expert opinion on the hazards of
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radiation and thus to promote the ‘‘protection’’ of the
population. The statute of the commission commits it to
giving advice on the demand of the government and
requires its members to pursue a ‘‘scientific discourse’’
(SSK 2012). Thus, the statute explicitly distinguishes sci-
entific knowledge as the relevant basis of judgment. On the
international level, the SSK cooperates with the ‘‘Interna-
tional Commission on Radiological Protection’’ (ICRP),
which seeks to evaluate and standardize radiation protec-
tion. The SSK was founded in 1973 in the time of a heated
public debate about the use of nuclear energy. However,
the spectrum of relevant items soon included radiation
protection issues at the workplace, in medical contexts, or
in daily life. Such problems concern, for instance, the
radiation risks involved in mammograms, cell phones or
tanning devices. We have conducted a 4-year study of the
SSK in the framework of a DFG-sponsored research pro-
ject. The study is intended to reconstruct epistemic and
non-epistemic commitments of the SSK work and to sug-
gest characteristics that apply to other forms of expertise as
well. Our research is based on the recommendations issued
by the SSK (now available on the SSK website http://www.
ssk.de/DE/Publikationen/VeroeffentlichungenderSSK/ver
oeffssk_node.html), the anonymized minutes of the SSK
meetings supplied to us by the German Federal Ministry of
the Environment,1 interviews with former presidents and
members of the committee, and the scientific basis of the
SSK judgments (i.e., published articles) as made explicit in
the recommendations or the recorded debates. This material
provides first-hand access to the reasoning of the committee
and allows us to trace how scientific expertise is produced.
Although our material is confined to the SSK, we take some
of these features to be generalizable to other examples of
expert advice (see Sect. 6).2
1
This is our quotation scheme for the minutes: ‘‘P’’ signals an SSK
protocol, followed by the year of the pertinent meeting and its number
(counted consecutively from the first meeting onward). Finally, the
item of the agenda is given (‘‘TOP’’); if a TOP number is missing,
only a single topic was treated in the pertinent meeting. According to
the statute article 14, Sect. 4 of the Strahlenschutzkommission, the
meetings of the commission and the crisis management team are
confidential. According to article 14, Sect. 4, subsection 2 of the
statute, the attendants of a meeting may not give information to third
parties about statements of individual members, voting results and the
contents of the minutes. The Federal Ministry for the Environment,
Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety has granted
Bielefeld University within the framework of the DFG-research
project ‘‘Science based policy advice. Epistemic-institutional charac-
teristics of expert commissions using the example of the radiation
protection commission’’ the right to use the unpublished minutes of
the SSK to a certain degree and under the conditions of article 39
GGO. We gratefully acknowledge the permission to use this material
for research purposes.
2
We want to thank our research assistant Hannah Dickmann who
helped us tremendously by wading through the material supplied by
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M. Carrier, W. Krohn
We wish to defend three claims in this paper. First,
expert judgment is often produced by building de-idealized
and complex models. In many cases, experts are unable to
derive their recommendations from the existing scientific
knowledge; they rather have to create new knowledge. This
production of expert knowledge is governed by specific
epistemic and non-epistemic criteria of judgment that are
different from those appealed to in scientific research
proper. Satisfying such requirements makes the models
relevant for addressing complex practical problems. Epis-
temic standards or values are used to assess the merits of
assumptions as contributions to scientific knowledge.
Empirical adequacy is a core value of this sort, but others
appreciated in the scientific community are explanatory
power (a few premises cover a broad domain of facts
precisely) or causal understanding. The latter standards are
non-empirical in that they refer to the way in which facts
are accommodated, and they are epistemic in the sense that
they express supposed virtues of knowledge in general
(Carrier 2013). In contrast, non-epistemic values are rela-
ted to the practical or social usefulness of knowledge.
Pragmatic virtues, such as manageability, or social con-
siderations, such as political realizability, belong in this
non-epistemic realm. In this framework, our second claim
is that the assessment of expert advice is governed by a
distinct set of epistemic values. Third, non-epistemic con-
siderations are included in the reasoning as well and serve
to improve the odds of acceptance in the sociopolitical
realm.
Our analysis suggests that the commission pursues three
major ambitions. First, they seek to be recognized by their
peers as a scientifically competent body. Their credibility
vis-à-vis their fellow scientists rests on their scientific
reputation. This is why the committee is anxious to keep its
distance from politics and emphasizes the mentioned
‘‘scientific’’ character of its advice [as stipulated by its by-
laws (SSK 2012)]. Second, the SSK is eager to appear
trustworthy to the public. The committee addresses issues
of public concern and strives to demonstrate its dedication
to the common good. Third, the SSK endeavors to appear
relevant to politics. The committee wishes to exert some
influence on politics, which creates an inclination toward
including socio-political considerations, albeit reluctantly,
in order to enhance their clout. They want to see their
advice being heeded even if social interests and lobby
groups pull politics in a different direction. In sum, we see
the self-image of the SSK characterized by the three goals
of scientific reputation, public trustworthiness, and political
Footnote 2 continued
the SSK and by screening, structuring, and ordering the protocols and
the recommendations.
Scientific Expertise: Epistemic and Social Standards—The Example of the German Radiation…
relevance. We attempt to show in what follows that these
goals do not always fit together smoothly.
We first address characteristics of model-building as
accomplished by the SSK. An important objective of such
endeavors is to capture the complexity of the relevant sit-
uation. In Sect. 3, we spell out epistemic values that can be
used for assessing the quality of expert recommendations.
In particular, the commitment to generality or universality,
as expressed, for instance, in the commitment to explana-
tory power, is replaced by the criterion of specificity (or the
ambition to capture the particulars of individual cases), and
the value of precision gives way to what we call epistemic
robustness. The relevant epistemic values do not always
point in the same direction, and their application some-
times requires a trade-off between competing demands. In
Sect. 4, we discuss non-epistemic standards underlying the
committee’s reasoning. Manageability (or ease of imple-
mentation) and social robustness, used by us in the sense of
compatibility with widespread value attitudes in society,
affect the content of the recommendations. The values we
attempt to identify are categories of analysis and apparently
not consciously invoked by the SSK. Section 5 deals with
the communication strategies of the SSK which can be
reconstructed as reflecting a growing concern for social
robustness.
2 Expert Advice Produced by Active Model
Building
Expert committees in general are supposed to elaborate the
state of scientific knowledge for addressing a given prac-
tical problem. As to the SSK, such problems are mostly
raised by politics (or the German Federal Ministry of the
Environment at that). However, right from its start in 1973,
the commission was authorized to identify matters of
concern on its own, and did so increasingly after ca. 2000
(see Sect. 5). The problems posed are framed with regard
to social relevance; they derive from outside of science.
For this reason, answers are typically not found within the
body of accepted knowledge. Rather, the general truths of
science need to be developed such that they are able to
deliver on these concrete practical demands. We want to
sketch in this section what this means precisely.
Scientific expertise is required to come up with specific
or tailor-made recommendations that address the particu-
lars of the problem at hand. Scientific knowledge addresses
general conditions, whereas expert advice is typically
directed at particular situations. Along these lines, it is a
recurrent challenge of the SSK to face the complexity of
individual cases appropriately. Scientific model-building
often benefits from focusing on idealized conditions that
highlight the explanatorily relevant factors and strip away
57
features judged to be of lesser importance. Idealized
models are false, strictly speaking, but they nevertheless
bring out the central features of the phenomenon in ques-
tion and thus advance understanding (Weisberg 2013,
98–106). However, expertise is often compelled to take the
full complexity of the phenomena into account. What
matters is not a qualitative understanding of the general
conditions but the evaluation of a peculiar, complex
situation.
For instance, the risk associated with ionizing radiation
is typically assessed on the basis of the dose absorbed by a
particular organ, the organ dose, weighted by factors that
express the ‘‘relative biological effectiveness’’ of the
radiation in question, for one, and the susceptibility of the
relevant tissue, for another. However, following a request
from the German Federal Ministry of the Environment and
suggestions from the literature (Behrens et al. 2009), the
SSK needed to address the suspicion that the hazard of b-
radiation (i.e., electron radiation) hitting the eye had been
grossly underestimated. Since most of this radiation is
absorbed in the front part of the eye lens, the customary
procedure of averaging the effect across the whole eye (the
organ dose) is faulty. The incoming energy is deposited in
a narrow stretch, rather than spread across the eye. This
problem is highly relevant for the medical staff involved in
administering certain kinds of therapy and for aircraft
crews. On the new approach to modeling the energy
absorption in the eye, the risk of contracting an eye cataract
comes out considerably higher. The point is that in order to
assess the detrimental impact of such conditions, the SSK
had to transcend the usual accounts. The commission
needed to de-idealize the received models and supply
additional details. The scientific models proceeded on the
basis of mono-energetic electrons and did not take the
complex geometry of the human head into account (where
ambient bones shield off radiation coming from above, for
instance). As a result, gauging the energy deposited in the
relevant parts of the eye required constructing new models;
such models could not just be imported from science (SSK
2010) (see Sect. 3 for additional aspects of this case).
Similarly, the diagnostic use of positron–electron
tomography (PET) posed new radiological challenges since
the procedure was mostly employed in combination with
computer tomography (CT). PET works by detecting c-
rays originating from positron–electron pair annihilation in
the body (and produced by administering a suitable radio
nuclide), while CT operates by sending X-rays through the
human body. Both methods provide complementary phys-
iological information and are best used in combination for
this reason. However, this combined application exposes
the patients to the joint effect of c-rays and X-rays, which
are similar in nature but exhibit different energies. No
model was available for assessing the combined impact of
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both types of radiation. The SSK felt obliged in 2005 to
commission research specifically on this problem
(P_05_204 TOP 9).
Another challenge to the SSK is to harmonize conflict-
ing scientific accounts. For instance, the damage done to
human tissue by ionizing radiation can be estimated on the
basis of three different approaches. One approach is epi-
demiological and proceeds from the observed effects
among the victims of the atomic bomb explosions of Hir-
oshima and Nagasaki and the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
A second approach is based on experiments with single
cells subjected to controlled radiation. The third one is
likewise experimental and considers animals exposed to
known doses of radiation. The predicament was that these
three approaches suggested different estimates of the car-
cinogenic effect produced by long-term low-dose radiation.
Neither of these approaches is clearly superior to the oth-
ers. The epidemiological approach concerned short-term
high-dose exposure, which is different from the conditions
under scrutiny, but dealt with human tissue, which agrees
with the problem at hand. The two experimental settings
had the advantage of administering controlled doses of
radiation and of being able to approach the long-term low-
dose scenario in question. However, they either concerned
isolated human cells, thus leaving out possible effects of
the interaction among cells, or they addressed animal cells.
In particular, DNA repair mechanisms were supposed to
differ among various types of cells and different doses and
to vary between tissue and single cells. Consequently, the
differences between the three approaches really seemed to
matter, with the result that the relative credentials were
unclear. What the committee did eventually was ‘‘inter-
polating’’ the incoherent outcomes. The conflicting
accounts were stitched together.3
These examples show that although the SSK does not
seek to establish new knowledge, it is sometimes compelled
to further develop the state of research. Facing complexity
often requires de-idealizing existing models so as to make
them rich enough for tackling the question at hand. De-
idealization involves adding context-specific features and
details that are characteristic of the particular case in ques-
tion (Weisberg 2013, 99–100). A second strategy for
arriving at a practically useful account is to consider models
dealing with particular aspects of a problem and models
emerging from particular experiential contexts as frag-
mentary descriptions that need to be combined in order to
produce appropriate judgments. In both cases, facing the
intricacy of the real world prevented the SSK from simply
importing models from the existing knowledge base and
3 a scientific but a political task. The SSK claimed that its
P_77_14; P_83_49B; SSK (1984), 7; Interview conducted with
Günther Dietze, a former SSK chairman on June 16, 2010; see also
Carrier (2010), 202–203.
123
M. Carrier, W. Krohn
rather forced them to adjust such models or to construct
them afresh. This finding supports the conclusion that expert
committees do not simply bring scientific knowledge to bear
on practical problems, but often need to elaborate and
expand such knowledge in order to cope with the complex
challenges at hand. Such specificity is an important epis-
temic aspiration of the committee work which requires
building de-idealized and complex models.
3 Epistemic Evaluation Standards for Expert
Recommendation
We wish to elaborate in this section how model-building
proceeds that is prompted by politics but intended to
comply with the demands of scientific theorizing. The
reconstruction of model-building practices of the SSK in
the preceding section suggests that such endeavors are
governed by the objective of coping with complexity.
Constructing models that are adequate to the complex
challenges in question is an epistemic value that charac-
terizes the work of the committee. This value is in harmony
with the self-understanding of the SSK to the effect that its
judgment relies on scientific standards alone. In a debate on
the potential hazards associated with the long-term use of
cell phones in 2001, the committee was anxious to
demarcate its work from the domain of politics. In their
eyes, it was their duty to examine whether there are sci-
entific reasons to suspect such a detrimental influence, as
being judged by known causal processes or epidemiologi-
cal studies. By contrast, individual cases fail to provide
sound evidence and cannot justify any reduction of the
maximum permissible radiation intensity (see Sect. 5). Any
such reduction would have to be based on the precaution-
ary principle which, however, is said to belong in the realm
of politics. It is politics, not science that needs to decide
which level of protection is desirable. In the view of the
SSK, their mandate is confined to questions that can be
addressed on a purely scientific basis (P_01_172 TOP 7).
In a similar vein, the SSK commits itself to scientific, or
epistemic, standards such as objectivity, causality, and
reproducibility. Again, reports about individual cases do
not provide legitimate reasons for recommending anything.
Such reports cannot serve as a basis of judgment but only
reveal the need for further research (SSK 2001, 6–7, 16, see
Sect. 5). Along the same line, the SSK argued in the con-
text of assessing more accurately the detrimental impact of
low energy b-radiation on the eye lens (to be considered in
greater detail below) that ‘‘protection’’ is not a scientific
category and that, consequently, placing limit values is not
own role in this business is confined to establishing the
pertinent factual basis, while drawing value-laden
Scientific Expertise: Epistemic and Social Standards—The Example of the German Radiation…
conclusions and setting limit values is to be left to the
responsible political body, that is, the Ministry (P_09_233).
This conception is in line with Roger Pielke’s view of the
scientific expert as an ‘‘honest broker.’’ In this view, it is
the task of the scientific expert to clarify and broaden the
range of options for action. No values ought to be adopted
by the expert; rather, alternative value choices should be
presented to politics, along with their consequences and
side-effects. Politicians, not scientists, make choices. Sci-
ence is no legitimate source of values (Pielke 2007, 1–7;
Pielke 2015, 60–64; see also Lackey 2007).
However, other instances demonstrate that the SSK is
unable to maintain this line. On one occasion, the com-
mittee appeals to the precautionary principle without much
ado in the context of assessing carcinogenic risks associ-
ated with ionizing radiation. The principle is said to sug-
gest to better overestimate than underestimate risks (SSK
1984, 7). This is in line with explanations to the effect that
while the precautionary principle is political and should be
left out of consideration, prudence regarding threshold
values can legitimately be recommended by the SSK. Such
latter deliberations are said to be the result of acknowl-
edging uncertainty and thus to be part of scientific rea-
soning proper (P_01_172 TOP 7).
These preliminary considerations show that the self-
declared exclusive commitment to scientific knowledge as
the basis of judgment is not upheld. In fact, analyzing the
practice of passing judgments within the SSK suggests that
epistemic and non-epistemic values play an important role.
We address epistemic values in this section, and non-
epistemic values in the subsequent section.
An important epistemic value the SSK tacitly appeals to is
epistemic robustness. We claim that epistemic robustness is a
quality standard that is specific to scientific expertise and is
not part of the assessment procedures of fundamental
research. ‘‘Robustness’’ is meant to express that the main
thrust of an analysis or recommendation remains unchanged
if the relevant influences vary to some degree. ‘‘Epistemic
robustness’’ designates the invariance of the outcome even if
the pertinent causal factors and factual conditions fluctuate
or are unknown; ‘‘social robustness’’ expresses the same
invariance with respect to a range of interests and value
commitments (see Sect. 4). Robustness in general outlines
the scope of acceptability in the face of ignorance of the
precise circumstances and in being confronted with a
diversity of non-epistemic commitments. Epistemic robust-
ness delineates the kind of reliability that is relevant for
expertise and designates the leeway of feasibility; social
robustness refers to the room left for the societal compati-
bility of a recommendation and respects or at least lays open
the constraints involved in its social or political implemen-
tation (Weingart et al. 2007, 299–304; Carrier 2010, 204;
Droste-Franke et al. 2015, 13, 38–39).
59
Epistemic robustness opens up an avenue for dealing
with uncertainty. Since scientific expertise is often forced
to face particularly intricate issues, it might be suspected
that expert advice suffers from serious epistemic short-
comings. The expectation is that the models constructed
are superficial and provide only insecure estimates. How-
ever, this potential deficiency need not hurt the usefulness
of an analysis or recommendation. More often than not,
dealing successfully with practical challenges does not
require accounting for the details. Addressing the minute
particulars is often immaterial for deciding about how to
respond to a practical challenge. The situation needs to be
clarified only to an extent that allows experts to develop a
clear and unambiguous recommendation. The gist of such a
recommendation is often independent of the particulars.
Accordingly, epistemic robustness is an important objec-
tive for scientific expertise. We explained that the model-
building activities of the commission are aimed at de-ide-
alization and, correspondingly, driven by the ambition to
cope with the complexity of the pertinent situation. How-
ever, epistemic robustness is a competing value that serves
to limit the degree of intricacy the models need to exhibit.
The implicit commitment of the SSK to epistemic
robustness can be identified in various arguments. We want
to discuss two such patterns, namely, generously placed
threshold values and pragmatic protection devices. In both
cases, the intention is to decouple the gist of the recom-
mendation from the uncertainty of the knowledge base.
First, a pattern frequently found in recommending
threshold values for various exposure scenarios encom-
passes two steps. The first is to establish a degree of
exposure for which a relevant effect can be measured.
Second, 10 % or at times 1 % of this intensity is recom-
mended as a threshold value (Trott 1983, 181; P_83_49B).
The underlying reasoning is that in case some unknown
effect occurs or some additional factor is influential, this
rectification should be inconsequential. Accordingly, epis-
temic robustness sometimes overrides the criterion of
precision that characterizes parts of epistemic research. It is
not possible to evaluate the relevant impact precisely, and
for this reason the recommendation is adjusted such that it
need not be precise in the first place.4 In other words,
epistemic robustness is the means expert committees use
for dealing with the threat of unknowns, either known
unknowns or unknown unknowns.
4
However, there are limits to sidelining the commitment to
precision. Epistemically robust judgments remain unchanged within
a corridor of uncertainty or fluctuation of the underlying causal
factors. If the values of these factors approach the boundaries of this
corridor, precision becomes important again. If changes among the
underlying influences would have an impact on the ways of dealing
with the relevant situation, epistemic robustness is of no help.
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Second, an even more striking example is the handling
of the mentioned increased susceptibility of the eye to
long-term low-intensity b-ray exposure that is relevant for
specific occupations such as radiological staff or aircrews.
We mentioned this case before as an example of active
model-building and an attempt of de-idealization: identi-
fying and measuring the relevant quantities demands the
construction of particular models that have no counterpart
in the realm of physics in general (see Sect. 2). Yet, the
case reveals further aspects of expert reasoning. The SSK
was alerted in 2009 by epidemiological studies that
revealed an elevated incidence of cataract among persons
whose exposure had probably remained below the existing
minimum threshold. Follow-up studies had shown that b-
rays deposit their energy in a more localized way in the eye
lens, thus causing more damage than anticipated. Accord-
ingly, one might have expected that the SSK would suggest
a reduction of this threshold value. This expectation is
strengthened by the additional finding that the lifetime
dose, rather than the annual dose, is the quantity relevant to
gauging the detriment produced by b-rays (P_09_233 TOP
7). Actually, in 2012, i.e., 2 years later, the ICRP indeed
recommended a significant reduction of the allowed annual
eye-lens dose for persons occupationally exposed to radi-
ation (ICRP 2012).
But this is not what the SSK did upon discussing the
new situation in 2009 and 2010. They placed emphasis on
optimization rather than reduction. Optimization is one of
three principles issued by the ICRP (in addition to justifi-
cation and limitation) and adopted by the SSK in 1984.
Optimization means, in the interpretation of the SSK, to
strive for a level of protection in which the sum of
expenditure and damage attains a minimum (SSK 1984, 9).
This principle suggests for the case at hand adjusting the
particular circumstances rather than the general legal
threshold. The underlying argument runs as follows. First,
it is not easy to measure the pertinent quantities. The new
findings suggest that electrons give off their energy within
a layer of 3 mm in the eye lens. There is no established
procedure for measuring this dose. Legal metrology in
many countries only acknowledges the surface dose
deposited in the outer 0.07 mm and the depth dose at
10 mm (P_09_234 TOP 7; SSK 2009, 4–5). The SSK
recommended to adhere to the surface dose and thus to the
established protocol. The reason given is that this quantity
will overestimate the energy deposited in the eye lens. In
this framework, the surface dose is used for averaging the
radiation impact in the outer 3 mm rim, and since
absorption abates in the deeper eye regions, this means
overrating the relevant dose. In addition, the SSK advo-
cated protective measures such as wearing glasses made of
suitable material and keeping one’s distance from the
radiation source (SSK 2010, 12–13).
123
M. Carrier, W. Krohn
This approach to the new and worrisome data was
unmistakably guided by the commitment to epistemic
robustness. As the SSK argued, de-idealization is possible
only to a limited degree and the precise evaluation of the
relevant quantities is very difficult to achieve (SSK 2010,
6–17). Fortunately enough, optimization does not demand
precise knowledge of these quantities. Using simple pro-
tection devices is sufficient for diminishing the hazard. In
other words, in dealing with this hazard, the epistemic
uncertainty can be ignored. We need not know in detail
what damage would occur without taking precautionary
measures. The only fact that counts is that by applying
certain protective procedures, the relevant dose will remain
well below the threshold (P_09_239 TOP 7; SSK 2010, 5).
The SSK argumentation is striking by its dispropor-
tionality between the revolutionary tone used for charac-
terizing the change in the scientific description and the
small-scale practical adjustments recommended. As to the
former, the SSK speaks of a ‘‘paradigm shift’’ in assessing
the risks of radiation-induced cataract (SSK 2009, 5) and
argues for a profound revision of the received mode of
understanding and evaluating such damage
(P_09_234_TOP 7). By contrast, when it comes to concrete
action, more restricted provisions such as wearing glasses
are called for. Nothing practical follows from de-idealiza-
tion and extensive modeling endeavors. They are vital for
understanding the situation, but this changed understanding
does not fully translate into new recommendations. The
latter are rather inspired by considerations of epistemic
robustness. In fact, epistemic robustness means for the case
in question that for practical purposes the critical magni-
tudes need not be evaluated precisely. They only need to
remain within a safety corridor. This is much easier to
accomplish than realizing accurate values. Seeking epis-
temically robust advice is intended to separate the gist of
expert recommendations from the intricacy of the practical
challenge at hand.
On the whole, scientific expertise is often required to
address complex circumstances so that the level of uncer-
tainty experts face is elevated as compared to epistemic
research. This is where the need arises to de-idealize sci-
entific models. However, this uncertainty need not hurt the
usefulness of a recommendation. Epistemic robustness may
serve to decouple epistemic uncertainty from the leeway
left to action. The latter can be addressed without actually
satisfying the epistemic demands and without developing
de-idealized models. In the case at hand, epistemic
robustness disconnects the major reorientation in scientific
outlook from the small-scale pragmatic solution recom-
mended in response. On the whole, then, the goal of doing
justice to real-world complexity is sometimes abrogated or
made superfluous by confining oneself to the objective of
epistemic robustness.
Scientific Expertise: Epistemic and Social Standards—The Example of the German Radiation…
We emphasize in this section the importance of epis-
temic robustness for useful scientific policy advice. But
another, contrasting virtue is relevant for such advice as
well, namely, opportuneness. Robustness aspires to be safe
against bad surprises. Opportuneness means that we are
able to take advantage of technological opportunities that
open up unexpectedly. Expert advice should also enable
politicians to benefit from pleasant surprises. Opportune-
ness as a guiding principle can be identified in various
expert judgments (Ben-Haim 2006, 3–4, 37–39; Droste-
Franke et al. 2015, 9–12), and is apparent in the reasoning
of the SSK as well.
In the early 2000s, positron–electron tomography (PET)
emerged as a new diagnostic tool that promised to be
effective and efficient. Against this background, the SSK
took the initiative to criticize the existing regulations for
releasing PET devices to the market. The SSK actively
advocated the use of such instruments as enhancing diag-
nostic quality and reducing radiation exposure (as com-
pared to alternative diagnostic tools). On the whole, the
SSK actively nudged the medical system to be more wel-
coming to this innovative procedure (P_02_182 TOP 13;
P_03_184 TOP 12; P_06_213 TOP 8; P_07_214 TOP 6).
Such a recommendation testifies the concern of the SSK
not to pass up an important technical opportunity.
4 Non-Epistemic Values Expected from Expert
Recommendations
Epistemic robustness delineates the kind of reliability that
is relevant for expertise; it designates the room left by
scientific knowledge to concrete actions. Non-epistemic
considerations respond to practical constraints. Giving
heed to such constraints does not enhance the scientific
quality of expert advice, but increases the odds of getting it
implemented. The room left for resolving an issue from an
epistemic angle can also be filled by taking political con-
straints, social interests, and value commitments into con-
sideration. We wish to discuss two non-epistemic
considerations that turn out to guide expert recommenda-
tions, namely, manageability and social robustness.
The value of manageability is highlighted by the eye-
lens example. As we explained, the new scientific findings
had suggested an unfamiliar measuring procedure for
establishing the risk of contracting radiation-induced cat-
aract. This risk is adequately estimated by the amount of
energy deposited within the outer 3 mm layer of the eye
lens. However, rather than adopting a new protocol, the
SSK adheres to the established surface dose that measures
the energy within a 0.07 mm layer (see Sect. 3). The rea-
son given is that switching to a new protocol is an intricate
process and would demand international harmonization.
61
The SSK shrank back from launching such a large-scale
endeavor. Recording the surface dose relies on an estab-
lished procedure and the resulting value will overestimate,
and not underestimate, the newly identified risk (SSK 2010,
5, 12–13).
This line of argument testifies again the SSK’s appeal to
epistemic robustness by following the recipe to proceed in
such a way that the unknown details do not matter
regarding action. Yet, it also reveals the influence of the
two non-epistemic virtues of manageability and social
robustness. Manageability means that a recommendation
should be easy to handle in practice. Its results should be
consistent and reproducible, and the efforts required should
be in proportion to the probable effect. This consideration
comes out clearly in the proposal to adhere to the received
dosimetry because any change would demand a large-scale
endeavor in building new instruments and in introducing
changed protocols at an international level. As a result,
manageability, just like epistemic robustness, is a value
that may stand in tension with the value of constructing
models that are up to the complexity of the situation.
Another domain governed by the virtue of manage-
ability is the problem of the admissible collective dose, i.e.,
the long-term radiation exposure of the general public that
can be considered safe. This amounts to the issue whether a
cut-off dose can be identified below which ionizing radi-
ation can be trusted to be harmless. Following Trott (1983),
the SSK adopted the position that such a threshold value
cannot be established on scientific grounds. First, this is a
consequence of the particulate nature of radiation, with the
result that even under low-dose conditions a particle or
photon may hit a cell and stimulate the onset of cancer.
Scientific understanding of the mechanism of how radia-
tion-induced damage is produced militates against the
existence of a minimum threshold.
Second, the idea appealed to is the relation of the radi-
ation in question to the natural background radiation. If
radiation exposure remains within the variability of this
natural background, no detrimental effects are to be
expected. The SSK is quite explicit in acknowledging that
this is a purely pragmatic principle. The reason is that
epidemiological studies are incapable of ascertaining that
such changes and variations really have no adverse impact.
Any such risk would be masked by all sorts of additional
influences and would be too weak to leave statistically
identifiable marks. Thus, it is a purely pragmatic maxim
that all differences in radiation exposure that are compa-
rable to natural fluctuations are not supposed to produce
any hazard. Otherwise, one would have to assume that
moving to a different region or to a differently constructed
house is a risky matter in terms of radiation exposure and
this would violate common sense (Trott 1983; P_77_14;
P_77_15; P_83_49B; SSK 1984).
123
62
Manageability obviously takes a major role in these
considerations. Given the lack of a secure knowledge base,
it would be unjustified to have people leave certain regions
or abandon their houses. The SSK eventually settled on the
notion of ‘‘insignificant level of risk,’’ which means that the
hazard associated with an increased level of radiation is
negligible relative to other risks of civilization. This notion
is justified by appeal to the so-called ALARA-principle,
issued by the ICRP in 1977, which says that the risk should
be ‘‘as low as reasonably achievable.’’ This principle is said
to include social and economic considerations (P_77_15;
P_83_49B). In its meeting (P_83_49B), but not in its
published recommendation (SSK 1984), the SSK explicitly
acknowledged that the alignment of threshold values of
radiation exposure toward the natural background radiation
is based on practical, economic, and social reasons. Man-
ageability carries the day.
The second non-epistemic consideration is social
robustness. Social robustness is taken into account since
the compatibility of the gist of a recommendation with the
prevalent interests and value attitudes in society affects the
odds of the acceptance and realization of this recommen-
dation. Frequently, the scientific assessment leaves room
for more than one political approach to be taken. Taking
non-epistemic values into account will neither improve nor
invalidate the epistemic quality of an expert advice but
enhance the prospects of a recommendation to be practi-
cally implemented and acceptable to the public.
Epistemic robustness may be used for enhancing social
robustness and for reassuring the public. This is the strat-
egy we encounter in the eye-lens case. Retaining the sur-
face dose as indicating exposure is justified by the fact that
this procedure tends to overestimate the relevant hazard
(see Sect. 3). This argument visibly represents an attempt
to remain on the safe side. It means building bridges to
more skeptical or more anxious persons. Building in a
safety margin means to comply with worries among social
groups and to demonstrate the willingness to meet possible
critics halfway.
The same approach is found in arguments used by the
SSK for crafting a dose–effect relation for low-dose long-
term radiation exposure. The relevant impact on human
tissue cannot be ascertained directly, and the SSK reached
its conclusion by interpolating the results of the diverse
methods on which such a relationship could be based (see
Sect. 2). We explained before that the evidence pointed in
different directions. What we want to consider here in
addition are the criteria used for giving preference to certain
evidence and neglecting other data. The salient point is that
epidemiological data intimated a linear dose–effect rela-
tionship, while exposing individual cells and animal tissue
to controlled low-dose radiation suggested a so-called
quadratic relationship. In the latter case, the effect drops off
123
M. Carrier, W. Krohn
more quickly toward lower doses, the case of primary
interest, so that low-dose long-term radiation would come
out less detrimental as compared to a linear relationship. The
assumption was that cellular repair mechanisms exist which
are able to cope with low-dose radiation. On the whole, the
commission was faced with conflicting results whose rela-
tive credentials were unclear. What the SSK did in stitching
together these incoherent accounts was placing emphasis on
being on the safe side. That is, they adopted a basically
linear relationship and thus intentionally assumed an ele-
vated hazard of low-dose long-term exposure. They
approved a relationship they thought themselves to be
inaccurate. The SSK explicitly opted for rather overesti-
mating than underestimating the risks involved (P_83_49B;
SSK 1984, 7). It can be expected that such a stricter regu-
lation is more apt to find support among political bodies and
the public—although it tended to ignore insecure knowledge
about how cells respond to radiation. Thus, it is the com-
mitment to social robustness that governed this choice.
Another way of expressing this emphasis on being on the
safe side and on rather overrating than underrating risks is a
shift in preference from false negatives to false positives. In
the former case, an assumption is erroneously rejected: a
certain effect or phenomenon exists, in fact, but the relevant
scientists fail to recognize it due to insufficient data or other
conflicting considerations. False positives mean, by contrast,
that a hypothesis is mistakenly accepted: although some
effect or phenomenon fails to obtain, in fact, it is incorrectly
assumed. A methodological maxim of scientific research is
to prefer false negatives to false positives. The Popperian
reason behind this judgment is that a false negative can be
seen as growing out of due epistemic care: a hypothesis is
only accepted if it has passed severe tests. A severe test can
be expected to reveal mistakes if there are any (Popper 1949,
353–354). An erroneous assumption is unlikely to meet such
a demanding standard so that no false positives should occur
in properly conducted research. By contrast, a false negative
means that a correct assumption has not yet been tested
thoroughly enough to warrant acceptance. Accordingly,
false negatives are taken as signifying a praiseworthy critical
attitude in science, while false positives are seen as indi-
cating rash and premature endorsement and as growing out of
a lack of severe standards in scrutinizing assumptions
(Carrier 2010, 198, 205; Droste-Franke et al. 2015, 43–44).
The practical relevance of scientific expertise may
induce a shift in this relation. Assume that much greater
risks are incurred by erroneously dismissing a true
hypothesis (i.e., by a false negative) than by its mistaken
approval (i.e., by a false positive). Under such circum-
stances, it is plausible to adjust the standards for embracing
and discarding hypotheses. In contradistinction to epis-
temic research, false positives could become preferable to
false negatives. In fact, this shift follows from an argument
Scientific Expertise: Epistemic and Social Standards—The Example of the German Radiation…
developed by Rudner (1953). Rudner suggested that
weighing the practical or non-epistemic consequences of
both kinds of potential errors should decide about what
amount of evidence is required for accepting a hypothesis.
A high threshold of acceptance reduces the risk of adopting
mistaken hypotheses, i.e., it serves to avoid false positives,
but increases the hazard of erroneously rejecting true
assumptions, i.e., of false negatives; and vice versa. It is
contentious whether this argument rightly characterizes the
process of hypothesis acceptance in science in general. The
relations between adopting an assumption and acting in a
certain way are variegated and ambivalent. That is, the
same set of beliefs can generate different actions, and the
same action can grow out of different beliefs. For instance,
the assumption that the risk of cataract associated with
sustained exposure to b-radiation is higher than anticipated
may lead to adjusting the relevant threshold value or to
introducing safety devices such as special eye glasses.
Conversely, placing the threshold for exposure to ionizing
radiation in the vicinity of the natural background radiation
can arise from the justified assumption that such doses are
innocuous or, alternatively, from the pragmatic considera-
tion that any such risk is small as compared to other risks of
civilization (see above). Worse yet, no specific actions are
connected to the acceptance of many hypotheses. Errors in
identifying the Higgs particle or in reconstructing prehis-
toric Indo-European migration patterns are not likely to
spawn any practical consequences (Carrier 2013).
However that may be, such practical, non-epistemic
considerations regarding the impact of error are certainly
relevant for scientific expertise. When experts give advice on
a question of practical importance, they legitimately take the
consequences of a possible error into account. This evidently
applies to the two cases mentioned, i.e., the allowed b-ra-
diation exposure of the eyes of professional staff and the
assessment of the detrimental impact of low-dose long-term
ionizing radiation on the general population. The safety
margins introduced in the two cases indicate that the damage
supposedly done by being overly strict and by imposing
superfluous, unnecessary safety rules (i.e., false positives) is
judged to be less significant than the risk of hurting people’s
health by being overly lenient (i.e., false negatives). In other
words, the amount of evidence required for adopting an
assumption whose falsity would have a severe negative
practical impact is enlarged—which is tantamount to shift-
ing preferences from false negatives to false positives.
5 Communication Strategies Adopted by the SSK
We explained in Sect. 1 that the SSK seeks to appear
respectable to its scientific peers, trustworthy to the general
public, and relevant to politics. A primary objective of the
63
SSK is to contribute to the political regulation of radiation
protection. The commission wants to see its advice heeded
by politicians. However, sustained controversies about
radiation risks among the general public led the committee
to adopting communication strategies that were directed at
concerned lay people. The SSK actively and visibly took
up concerns assumed to be present in the population and
sought to convey the impression that it acts on behalf of the
public. The self-understanding of being a neutral arbiter of
political strife gives way, in part, to the self-image of
acting as an attorney of the public. This double orientation
toward political or administrative bodies in charge of reg-
ulatory issues and toward lay opinions can be reconstructed
as two sorts of social robustness: Value attitudes of deci-
sion-makers and the general public are both taken into
account in order to enhance the odds of being listened to. In
the following we depict the commission’s turn toward the
public around the year 2000, when the rapid spread of new
devices triggered concerns about the hazards of non-ion-
izing radiation. We seek to explore, in particular, how the
commission strives to reconcile its advocatory role with the
competing self-understanding of representing the epistemic
authority of science.
In the literature on scientific expertise, social participa-
tion is proposed, for one, as a means of enhancing the pro-
spects of acceptance of a recommendation by the public,
and, for another, as an instrument for upgrading the epis-
temic viability of such a recommendation. Thus, incorpo-
rating local points of view may serve to increase social
robustness and to expand the empirical basis of expert
advice. First, social participation demands that scientific
experts take local interests and value-attitudes into account.
The underlying motive is to increase the odds of being
heeded. Second, scientific experts are well advised to pay
attention to lay knowledge as a form of experience-based
expertise. Lay people are familiar with the circumstances on
site and may thus be able to adduce specific information.
Accordingly, giving heed to local experience tends to sup-
port the reliability of the conclusions. Both kinds of par-
ticipation are distinct conceptually, but including local
voices is apt to serve both ends (Collins and Evans 2002,
249–251, 255, 258–259, 267; Brown 2009, 240–243; Whyte
and Crease 2010, 415–417; Carrier 2010, 208–209).
The SSK did not accept lay expertise as a factor that
could influence their conclusions. However, it recognized
individual, experience-based reports as stimuli for further
research. The commission took up worries from the pop-
ulation as sources of information. This policy of openness
toward the public served as a communication strategy that
was supposed to promote the social robustness of the
recommendations.
In particular, in 2001, the SSK introduced three cate-
gories for evaluating studies and reports about detrimental
123
64
health effects. A scientific proof (wissenschaftlicher
Nachweis) is provided by clear statistical correlations and
an established causal mechanism. A scientific proof of an
adverse impact necessitates some sort of action on the part
of the committee regarding political regulation. A scien-
tifically justified suspicion (wissenschaftlich begründeter
Verdacht) is based on conspicuous correlations (without
any proven causal linkage). Under such conditions pre-
cautionary measures should be considered. A scientific
indication (wissenschaftlicher Hinweis) is afforded by
reports about individual cases. The adequate response to
indications is doing research on the matter (P_01_172 TOP
7; SSK 2001, 6–7).
The introduction of this third category of indication
means that anecdotal evidence could be taken seriously as a
cause of concern. As a result, some activity was launched
in such cases in order to demonstrate that the SSK attended
to the matter. For instance, press releases about a Bavarian
peasant who suspected that the health condition of his dairy
cattle had deteriorated under the influence of a nearby
mobile transmission tower were taken up by the commis-
sion (P_98_152 TOP 3). Even though no concrete action
was recommended, the commission had ostentatiously
demonstrated its willingness to go into such contentious
issues and thus to act as attorney of the public.
A move in the same direction was picking up the notion
of ‘‘electrosensitive persons’’ from the public discussion. A
popular argument among the general audience was that
adverse health effects of high-voltage transmission lines
and mobile transmission towers were concentrated on or
even confined to a group of particularly sensitive persons.
The lack of any general, statistically significant correlation
between the physical impact of such devices and public
health was argued to still leave the possibility open that
these sensitive persons were hurt. The SSK was seizing on
such worries and encouraged studies on the existence of
such electrosensitive persons (which, by the way, failed to
trace any such people) (P_01_172 TOP 7; P_01_174 TOP
13; SSK 1998, 10; SSK 2002, 13–14; SSK 2008, 7–8; SSK
2011, 27–29).
Thus, whereas, on the one hand, the category of indi-
cation could be used as a means for demonstrating the
openness of the commission to popular concerns, the
conclusions reached, on the other hand, remained unaf-
fected by such considerations. Reports about individual
cases were not accepted as lay expertise; rather, their
trustworthiness was estimated by a comparison with the
state of knowledge. This meant in practice that the reports
were often considered misleading and irrelevant. The rec-
ommendations were entirely based on results that fall into
the upper two categories of proofs and suspicions. In the
end, the SSK relied exclusively on the epistemic authority
of science. It deserves notice, however, that the SSK took
123
M. Carrier, W. Krohn
anecdotal evidence as signaling topics that receive public
attention and thus allows such indications to raise new
topics. As a result, although public concerns had no tan-
gible impact on the substance of the recommendations,
they were influential on the topics the SSK singled out for
consideration. This is part of the role of acting as a public
attorney: the SSK picks up worries of the population. Yet
in the second step, it insisted on deciding about their jus-
tification on the basis of epistemic standards alone.
This strategy of picking up concerns and addressing
them by stimulating or commissioning research can be seen
as part of a more general shift in the communication pat-
terns of the SSK around 2000. Another part of this switch is
the committee’s 1997 decision to make its recommenda-
tions available to the public, to use generally accessible
language, and to avoid any derogatory comments on
allegedly groundless fears among the population
(P_00_169 TOP 9). The SSK was becoming increasingly
aware that not only politics, but also the general public
represents its audience. It is this move that prompts the
distinction between social robustness regarding politics and
regarding the lay audience.
An important step in this communicative switch toward
the public was to emphasize the uncertainty involved in
and the tentative character of the recommendations.
Around 2000, the SSK became increasingly aware of the
risk that falsely negative judgments pose to its reputation
and credibility. Such judgments prematurely discount
hazards and uncertainties and backfire severely if their
deceptive character is later revealed in public. The SSK
had experienced such a backlash after its hasty attempt to
reassure the population in the face of the Chernobyl acci-
dent in 1986. This glaring misjudgment had done heavy
damage to the trustworthiness of the SSK (Krohn and
Weingart 1987). In order to prevent another setback and to
promote the credibility of its advice among the general
public, the phrasing of its recommendations became much
more cautious. For instance, the SSK failed to recognize
any hazardous effects of the radiation exposure connected
to cell phone use. They did not simply say so, however, but
rather considered various abstract risks (such as the
superposition of numerous electromagnetic fields, potential
genetic effects of the radiation, unknown effects of long-
term exposure, and the possibility of electrosensitive per-
sons). The conclusion was that at present no relevant risks
are known but that additional research is needed in order to
learn more about possible unknown risks (P_01_173 TOP
3; SSK 2001, 17; SSK 2002, 13–14; SSK 2003, 7–8,
11–13, 15–16).
The intent to enhance the social robustness of its rec-
ommendations and, correspondingly, its political clout as
well as the concern for its own trustworthiness induced a
change in the strategies the SSK employs in risk
Scientific Expertise: Epistemic and Social Standards—The Example of the German Radiation…
communication. The earlier practice of inferring harm-
lessness without much ado from the state of knowledge has
given way to a more cautious attitude and the emphasis on
avoiding falsely negative judgments. The epistemic
authority of science is maintained, but it is now accom-
panied by stressing the limits of knowledge (P_01_173
TOP 3; P_01_174 TOP 13; SSK 2003, 16–17). This
emphasis on uncertainty matches the practice of building
tentative models, performing interpolations between con-
trasting partial accounts, and drawing on pragmatic max-
ims better than the idea that the reasoning of the SSK
proceeds from secure knowledge about matters of fact.
However, the latter idea is retained in the self-image of the
SSK.
6 Conclusion
The self-understanding of the SSK is essentially based on
the idea that radiation protection should be anchored in
scientific knowledge. Expertise should apply reliable sci-
entific knowledge to concrete, life-world problems. In its
self-image, the SSK is committed to taking scientific
knowledge as the sole source of expert advice. This com-
mitment translates into the three categories of preserving
the SSK’s scientific reputation, securing its trustworthiness
to the public, and maintaining the political relevance of its
recommendations (see Sect. 1). However, we have
attempted to show that the actual work of the SSK exhibits
additional dimensions that do not always square well with
this understanding of expert advice as applied scientific
knowledge. That is to say, the work of the commission is
governed by particular standards, but these standards are
not explicitly recognized by the commission and are rather
revealed by our analysis of its recommendations and
deliberations.
Our first point is that the endeavors to build de-idealized
and complex models show that the commission produces
new knowledge of a particular sort, namely, models tai-
lored to specific circumstances. Accordingly, the commis-
sion does not simply translate the state of knowledge into
expert advice, but adds new elements. Second, the com-
mission appeals to epistemic standards that are character-
istic of expertise and have no analog in scientific research
proper. Epistemic commitments of the latter sort include
precision, predictive power, and large scope, whereas
epistemic values that have turned out to be relevant for
expert advice are specificity and epistemic robustness.
Epistemic values often point in different directions when
being applied to particular cases (Kuhn 1977). As regards
epistemic values governing expert judgments of the SSK, a
tension arises between specificity and epistemic robustness:
the former value demands including the particulars of the
65
case at hand, while the latter advises experts to make their
conclusions independent of these particulars as far as
possible. The trade-off between specificity and epistemic
robustness is conspicuous in the eye-lens example. This
example shows how epistemic robustness is used for
establishing the practical relevance of scientific knowledge.
Third, non-epistemic values come into play. Such values
are not related to the scientific quality of the expert rec-
ommendations but are supposed to enhance their political
significance and their social trustworthiness. Social
robustness is chief among such values. We have argued
that social robustness ramifies into two branches, one
directed at politics, and another one directed at society at
large. The former is shaped by values such as manage-
ability and is thought to increase the odds of being noticed
by decision-makers. Social robustness with respect to the
public is enhanced if the recommendations are visibly
receptive to fears and worries. This includes in particular
the noticeable sensitivity to the risks of ignorance and the
corresponding emphasis on avoiding false negatives. On
the whole, the self-understanding of the SSK involves
keeping its distance from politics, but the SSK is also
anxious of being heeded and thus includes sociopolitical
considerations that make the recommendations more sus-
ceptible to politics and society. The position the commis-
sion adopts is taking up social concerns but building the
gist of its recommendations as far as possible upon scien-
tific knowledge. This approach goes along with pursuing a
communication strategy that seeks to take public concerns
into account and emphasizes uncertainty and the limits of
knowledge. This idea is difficult to harmonize with the
mentioned notion, entertained at the same time, that the
SSK is a neutral body of experts that stays out of political
and social affairs.
A final question is to which extent our observations and
conclusions are generalizable to similar science-based
expert judgments in other fields. We are unable to give an
unambiguous answer, but we suggest two considerations.
First, it is plausible that the same efforts to transform sci-
entific knowledge into specific recommendations and to
bring particular epistemic and non-epistemic values to bear
are present in other instances as well. Moreover, if pro-
tection from hazards and risks is the predominant objective,
the values can be expected to be similar to those we
identified. However, if the tasks at hand are widely dif-
ferent, such as strengthening economic innovation or
building up an integrative education system, other values
may come to the fore. Second, the sustained efforts of the
SSK to emphasize its status as a scientific body may be
rooted in the intensity of public concerns about radiation
hazards. This may be the reason why the commission took
pains to keep its distance from changing policy goals and
stressed its role as a public advocate. Yet, the underlying
123
66
conflict between expectations of decision-makers and the
desire to act on behalf of the general public presumably
emerges in other cases as well. The SSK attempted to
resolve this conflict by hiding itself, as it were, behind the
authority of scientific knowledge. It is worthwhile to
explore whether other expert committees took a different
path and defended particular values of expert judgment as
standards of quality and relevance of their work.
Acknowledgments We wish to express our gratitude to the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft for sponsoring the project (Ca120/17-2).
Martin Carrier completed the paper while being a senior fellow at the
Alfried-Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg in Greifswald and extends his
heartfelt thanks to this institution.
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