Contemporary Ideology Forum hosts Dr D. Parr on the Precautionary Principle

Dr Doug Parr, Chief Scientist of Greenpeace, will be talking the Precautionary Principle in relation to new technologies, GMOs, nanotechnology and wind power. He will argue that the Precautionary Principle can be applied in all these cases, but this can still lead to differing positions on what to do. This is because underlying some of these judgements is a differing set of values. He will attempt to draw out how this relates to three sets of people: (a) Greenpeace, (b) "the public" and (c) "the establishment" (both scientififc and political). His presentation will also draw out, with examples, how difficult it is for certain arguments to be heard which amounts to little better than censorship.

This event is a part of a lecture series run at Oxford Brookes University by research students called Contemporary Ideology Forum. The purpose of the series is to provide an arena for discussion of a variety of contemporary issues ranging from environmentalism to nationalism. In past years our speakers have included Dr. Caroline Lucas (MEP), Peter Tatchell and George Galloway. After our speakers present we tend to open the floor to questions and hopefully further debate and reflection on issues covered by the speaker. This year our overarching theme to our sessions is communication, and we have titled this 'Brainwashing: communication, miscommunication and propaganda.' All sessions are held in the Research Centre of the university, room no. SG03. All sessions begin at 6.00pm on Thursday evenings and all sessions are free and open to the public. We are also open to anyone who wishes to present in the future. We ask that if anybody has an idea that they submit a short abstract to one of us, our email addresses are available on the CIF website. The link to this is: