John Downer
Biographic Data
| ID | 295047 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Downer |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Downer |
| SIGNATURE | DOWNER J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bristol |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0936-3628 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 96 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Clinicians and AI use
With the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) to healthcare, there is also a need for professional guidance to support its use. New (2022) reports from National Health Service AI Lab & Health Education England focus on healthcare workers’ understanding and confidence in AI clinical decision support systems (AI-CDDSs), and are concerned with developing trust in, and the trustworthiness of these systems. While they offer guidance to aid dev…
Empires built on sand
This paper explores the nature of expert knowledge‐claims made about catastrophic reactor accidents and the processes through which they are produced. Using the contested approval of the AP1000 reactor by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as a case study and drawing on insights from the Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature, it finds that the epistemological foundations of safety assessments are counterintuitively distinct from…
Behavioral Economics and Nuclear Weapons
Behavioral Economics and Nuclear Weapons
Recent discoveries in psychology and neuroscience have improved our understanding of why our decision making processes fail to match standard social science assumptions about rationality. As researchers such as Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and Richard Thaler have shown, people often depart in systematic ways from the predictions of the rational actor model of classic economic thought because of the influence of emotions, cognitive biases, an av…
The Aviation Paradox
Publics and policymakers increasingly have to contend with the risks of complex, safety-critical technologies, such as airframes and reactors. As such, 'technological risk' has become an important object of modern governance, with state regulators as core agents, and 'reliability assessment' as the most essential metric. The Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature casts doubt on whether or not we should place our faith in these assessment…
Disowning Fukushima
This paper reflects on the credibility of nuclear risk assessment in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns. In democratic states, policymaking around nuclear energy has long been premised on an understanding that experts can objectively and accurately calculate the probability of catastrophic accidents. Yet the Fukushima disaster lends credence to the substantial body of social science research that suggests such calculations are fundamentally…
Renewing Defra’
Risk‐based policymaking is a form of reflexive policymaking that uses risk analysis to address both the primary objects of policy interventions and their secondary adverse consequences. As such, it has become central to debates about efficiency, control and accountability in UK government. To better understand the factors shaping its emergence, this article studies the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) adoption of ris…
Cabriolet
This article looks at the fateful 1988 fuselage failure of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 to suggest and illustrate a new perspective on the sociology of technological accidents. Drawing on core insights from the sociology of scientific knowledge, it highlights, and then challenges, a fundamental principle underlying our understanding of technological risk: a realist epistemology that tacitly assumes that technological knowledge is objectively knowabl…
Trust and technology
This paper looks at the dilemmas posed by 'expertise' in high-technology regulation by examining the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) 'type-certification' process, through which they evaluate new designs of civil aircraft. It observes that the FAA delegate a large amount of this work to the manufacturers themselves, and discusses why they do this by invoking arguments from the sociology of science and technology. It suggests that - cont…
When the Chick Hits the Fan
Before a new turbojet engine design is approved, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must assure themselves that, among many other things, the engine can safely ingest birds. They do this by mandating a series of well-defined - if somewhat Pythonesque - ‘birdstrike tests’ through which the manufacturers can demonstrate the integrity of their engines. In principle, the tests are straightforward: engineers run an engine at high speed, launch …
Trust and technology
This paper looks at the dilemmas posed by 'expertise' in high-technology regulation by examining the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) 'type-certification' process, through which they evaluate new designs of civil aircraft. It observes that the FAA delegate a large amount of this work to the manufacturers themselves, and discusses why they do this by invoking arguments from the sociology of science and technology. It suggests that - cont…
Cabriolet
This article looks at the fateful 1988 fuselage failure of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 to suggest and illustrate a new perspective on the sociology of technological accidents. Drawing on core insights from the sociology of scientific knowledge, it highlights, and then challenges, a fundamental principle underlying our understanding of technological risk: a realist epistemology that tacitly assumes that technological knowledge is objectively knowabl…
When the Chick Hits the Fan
Before a new turbojet engine design is approved, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must assure themselves that, among many other things, the engine can safely ingest birds. They do this by mandating a series of well-defined - if somewhat Pythonesque - ‘birdstrike tests’ through which the manufacturers can demonstrate the integrity of their engines. In principle, the tests are straightforward: engineers run an engine at high speed, launch …
Renewing Defra’
Risk‐based policymaking is a form of reflexive policymaking that uses risk analysis to address both the primary objects of policy interventions and their secondary adverse consequences. As such, it has become central to debates about efficiency, control and accountability in UK government. To better understand the factors shaping its emergence, this article studies the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) adoption of ris…
Disowning Fukushima
This paper reflects on the credibility of nuclear risk assessment in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns. In democratic states, policymaking around nuclear energy has long been premised on an understanding that experts can objectively and accurately calculate the probability of catastrophic accidents. Yet the Fukushima disaster lends credence to the substantial body of social science research that suggests such calculations are fundamentally…
The Aviation Paradox
Publics and policymakers increasingly have to contend with the risks of complex, safety-critical technologies, such as airframes and reactors. As such, 'technological risk' has become an important object of modern governance, with state regulators as core agents, and 'reliability assessment' as the most essential metric. The Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature casts doubt on whether or not we should place our faith in these assessment…
Empires built on sand
This paper explores the nature of expert knowledge‐claims made about catastrophic reactor accidents and the processes through which they are produced. Using the contested approval of the AP1000 reactor by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as a case study and drawing on insights from the Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature, it finds that the epistemological foundations of safety assessments are counterintuitively distinct from…
When the Chick Hits the Fan
Before a new turbojet engine design is approved, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must assure themselves that, among many other things, the engine can safely ingest birds. They do this by mandating a series of well-defined - if somewhat Pythonesque - ‘birdstrike tests’ through which the manufacturers can demonstrate the integrity of their engines. In principle, the tests are straightforward: engineers run an engine at high speed, launch …
Trust and technology
This paper looks at the dilemmas posed by 'expertise' in high-technology regulation by examining the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) 'type-certification' process, through which they evaluate new designs of civil aircraft. It observes that the FAA delegate a large amount of this work to the manufacturers themselves, and discusses why they do this by invoking arguments from the sociology of science and technology. It suggests that - cont…
Cabriolet
This article looks at the fateful 1988 fuselage failure of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 to suggest and illustrate a new perspective on the sociology of technological accidents. Drawing on core insights from the sociology of scientific knowledge, it highlights, and then challenges, a fundamental principle underlying our understanding of technological risk: a realist epistemology that tacitly assumes that technological knowledge is objectively knowabl…
Renewing Defra’
Risk‐based policymaking is a form of reflexive policymaking that uses risk analysis to address both the primary objects of policy interventions and their secondary adverse consequences. As such, it has become central to debates about efficiency, control and accountability in UK government. To better understand the factors shaping its emergence, this article studies the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) adoption of ris…
Disowning Fukushima
This paper reflects on the credibility of nuclear risk assessment in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns. In democratic states, policymaking around nuclear energy has long been premised on an understanding that experts can objectively and accurately calculate the probability of catastrophic accidents. Yet the Fukushima disaster lends credence to the substantial body of social science research that suggests such calculations are fundamentally…
The Aviation Paradox
Publics and policymakers increasingly have to contend with the risks of complex, safety-critical technologies, such as airframes and reactors. As such, 'technological risk' has become an important object of modern governance, with state regulators as core agents, and 'reliability assessment' as the most essential metric. The Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature casts doubt on whether or not we should place our faith in these assessment…
Behavioral Economics and Nuclear Weapons
Behavioral Economics and Nuclear Weapons
Recent discoveries in psychology and neuroscience have improved our understanding of why our decision making processes fail to match standard social science assumptions about rationality. As researchers such as Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and Richard Thaler have shown, people often depart in systematic ways from the predictions of the rational actor model of classic economic thought because of the influence of emotions, cognitive biases, an av…
Empires built on sand
This paper explores the nature of expert knowledge‐claims made about catastrophic reactor accidents and the processes through which they are produced. Using the contested approval of the AP1000 reactor by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as a case study and drawing on insights from the Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature, it finds that the epistemological foundations of safety assessments are counterintuitively distinct from…
Clinicians and AI use
With the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) to healthcare, there is also a need for professional guidance to support its use. New (2022) reports from National Health Service AI Lab & Health Education England focus on healthcare workers’ understanding and confidence in AI clinical decision support systems (AI-CDDSs), and are concerned with developing trust in, and the trustworthiness of these systems. While they offer guidance to aid dev…
Political science (6 works) · Engineering (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Risk Perception and Management (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Aviation (3 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Economics (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Law (3 works)