Current environmental problems and technological risks are a challenge for a new institutional arrangement of the value spheres of Science, Politics and Morality. Distinguished authors from different European countries and America provide a cross-disciplinary perspective on the problems of political decision making under the conditions of scientific uncertainty. cases from biotechnology and the environmental sciences are discussed.
The papers collected for this volume address the following themes: (i) controversies about risks and political decision making; (ii) concepts of science for policy; (iii) the use of social science in the policy making process; (iv) ethical problems with developments in science and technology; (v) public and state interests in the development and control of technology.

Inhalt
1 Controversies and Political Decision Making.- 2 Controversies about Risks and Their Relation to Different Paradigms in Biological Research.- 3 Probabilistic Uncertainty and Technological Risks.- 4 A new Branch of Science, Inc..- 5 The Emergence of Post-Normal Science.- 6 Argumentation and Power in Evaluation-Research and in Its Utilization in the Policy Making Process.- 7 Scientific Knowledge, Discourse Ethics, and Consensus Formation on Public Policy Issues.- 8 The Argument about a New Paradigm for Health Research.- 9 AIDS and Human Rights: A Societal Choice.- 10 Biotechnology and Social Perception.- 11 Scientific Controversies in Food Biotechnology.