Abstract

The Triple Helix Events presents

“The Science of Risk” Panel Debate Thursday 20th January 2011 McCrum Lecture Theatre, Ben’et Street 7.30pm-9.30pm

Free entry. Free refreshments provided.

“Worldwide, there were 79 unprovoked shark attacks in 2000, compared with 58 in 1999 and 54 the year before. Poorly wired Christmas tree lights claim more victims than sharks.

In 2003, a Home Office report stated that 68 British children have been abducted that year by a stranger. With 11.4 million children under 16 living in the UK, that works out to a risk of one in 167,647.

158 people in Britain have died from the human variation of mad cow disease yet 12,000 Britons are killed each year by flu and related complications.”

Do you know your risk?

Join us for an evening panel debate exploring the concept of “risk”. How good is our perception of risk? In new science technologies, who’s responsibility is it to communicate risk? The media? Industry? Whether it be in mathematics, industry, research or marketing, risk has evolved a language of its own.

Panel to include:

Professor David Spiegelhalter Professor of Risk University of Cambridge

Dr. Brooke Rogers Lecturer in Risk and Terror in the King’s Centre for Risk Management King’s College London

Dr Tony Wilson Entrepreneur

Dr David Whitehouse Science Journalist and author (BBC Online Science Editor)