The Aviation Paradox: Why We Can ‘Know’ Jetliners But Not Reactors.

Autor/in	Downer, John
Titel	The Aviation Paradox: Why We Can ‘Know’ Jetliners But Not Reactors.
Quelle	In: Minerva, (2017) 2, S.229-248Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0026-4695
DOI	10.1007/s11024-017-9322-4
Schlagwörter	Engineering; Reliability; Risk; Safety; Regulation; Technology assessment; Nuclear energy; Civil aviation; Jetliners; Reactors
Abstract	Abstract 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 assessments because predictively calculating the ultra-high reliability required of such systems poses seemingly insurmountable epistemological problems. This paper argues that these misgivings are warranted in the nuclear sphere, despite evidence from the aviation sphere suggesting that such calculations can be accurate. It explains why regulatory calculations that predict the reliability of new airframes cannot work in principle, and then it explains why those calculations work in practice. It then builds on this explanation to argue that the means by which engineers manage reliability in aviation is highly domain-specific, and to suggest how a more nuanced understanding of jetliners could inform debates about nuclear energy.
Erfasst von	OLC
Update	2023/2/05