Scientific Expertise and Risk Aggregation

Abstract

When scientists are asked to give expert advice on risk-related questions, such as the authorization of medical drugs, deliberation often does not eliminate all disagreements. I propose to model these remaining discrepancies as differences in risk assessments and/or in risk acceptability thresholds. The normative question I consider, then, is how the individual expert views should best be aggregated. I discuss what “best” could mean, with an eye to some robustness considerations. I argue that the majority rule, which is currently often used in expert panels, has significant drawbacks.