Dr. Mark Leggett: Review of LSAG process

[Gruber]

We have got the honour to (pre-)publish a new and highly relevant study concerning the LHC-safety debate from Dr. Mark Leggett, Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance, Griffith University, Australia:

The well-published Australian scientist and safety expert Dr. Mark Leggett has been involved with the particle collider risk question for a number of years. In a new study not yet submitted to the literature he has assessed the LSAG report, not as a physics analysis, but as a safety analysis. This is done by assessing the structure, method and content of the LSAG report against a survey of current recommendations for best practice safety analyses.

The study shows that the LSAG report has less than a quarter of the elements that would be present if current recommendations for best-practice safety assessments were followed as shown in the survey. The Australian analysis has been provided to “LHC Critique” to assist further steps in the constructive handling of the LHC experiment.

Free download of the full study is now provided here at “Actual / Pressinfo”, September 1, 2009:
http://lhc-concern.info/?page_id=11

Or directly:
http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/leggett_review_of_lsag_process_sept_1__09.pdf

——-
Excerpt of the 14-page-study of Dr. Leggett:

p. 3
Concerning decision-making on the report, the report would normally (see below) go to an independent regulator. According to the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) [10] the monitoring of the radiological impact of the LHC accelerator is conducted for Switzerland, by the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) and for France by the Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (ASN).

BAG and ASN did not commission the LSAG report, and, as far as can be seen, BAG and ASN have taken no role in the safety issues which LSAG has assessed concerning the LHC.

CERN Council has taken on a regulator type role, in that the LSAG report was tabled before it, and it commissioned a review of the report. CERN Council involves representatives from the 20 governments funding CERN, and hence the LHC. Attachment 1 shows the affiliations of the 28 members. Half are particle physicists, and the remainder are elected representatives or civil servants. No members of CERN Council fit the characteristics for public involvement recommended by [4] above.
[…]

Who should be involved in the assessment?
The public
[…]

Experts
[…]
p. 4
On the question of this rationale, some years ago the European Commission, so as to improve “the knowledge base for better policies” ran a major review. The results are embodied in the Communication from the commission on the collection and use of expertise by the Commission: Principles and Guidelines: (2002) [5].

In the communication, the EC states that one of the three determinants of quality of advice they distinguish is pluralism.
[…]

p. 5
“Wherever possible, a diversity of viewpoints should be assembled. This diversity may result from differences in scientific approach, different types of expertise, different institutional affiliations, or contrasting opinions over the fundamental assumptions underlying the issue. Is it appropriate to mobilise experts beyond the scientific community? These may include, for example, lawyers, ethicists…”

Attachment 2 lists the professions of those involved in the LSAG report and decision-making on it. The list shows a large number of some 26 different people involved to the stage of tabling to CERN Council. Of the 26, all were physicists.

What should be assessed?

Method
Risk assessment
[…]
Although not cited as the method - no safety methodology is cited - the risk assessment in the LSAG documents can be seen as a type of Probabilistic Safety Analysis. The documents do not contain fault trees, reducing their capacity to show that all the events that can be imagined and their possible consequences have been covered.

Safety management system
Controls
[…]
The LSAG documents, in making a case for negligible risk, are arguing that no protection is needed.

p. 6
Who should decide?
Issues with decisions

Elliot and Taig (2005) [4] note that:
“(Organisations) have no ethical duty or moral right to make judgements about what society wants.”
[…]

The regulator
[…]
To the extent that CERN Council is seen as the regulator, is it argued above that it is not independent because of its prior decisions supporting funding of the LHC.

To the extent that BAG and ASN are the regulators, they have taken no part in the proceedings to date.

In any event, the current LSAG-related process has involved no consultation with “parties in the vicinity, the public and other interested parties, as appropriate, in an open and inclusive process.”
[…]

p. 7
This assessment shows that the CERN process satisfied only 18 per cent of the criteria in the table.
[…]

p. 8
Looking, then, at the LSAG report, it seems to be positioned clearly under Gibbons’ “old” contract with society – seen to produce ‘reliable’ knowledge, provided merely that it communicates its discoveries to society. (as LSAG has communicated its findings.); via a process within its conventional discipline-bound norm (only physicists were involved in the production of the LSAG findings).

Gibbons [ref] would no doubt therefore conclude that the LSAG findings “can no longer be validated as reliable”; and would recommend that the way to approach such validation (as socially robust knowledge) would be to involve not just physicists but “many different ‘knowledge dimensions’” achieved by “an extended group of experts, including lay ‘experts’”.

Second, concerning the completeness of the risk assessment stage, the ethicist T. Ord observes[12]:
“(At the present time)… we are genuinely uncertain about our physical theories. Indeed, we are so uncertain as to spend more than 3 billion euros building the LHC in order to find out more. Moreover, we know that our current theories are false because they don’t correctly merge Relativity Theory and Quantum Mechanics. That is, we know that we don’t presently understand what happens with tiny objects that are extremely dense and/or moving near the speed of light. Since this is exactly what is occurring in the LHC, we have significant reason to distrust the probability calculations. They tell us the chance of the LHC destroying life on earth given that the underlying theory is completely correct, but what we really want to know is what the chance is given our uncertainty in the underlying theory. This is impossible to calculate precisely, but will be much higher than the stated odds. Considering the stakes, it is thus highly irresponsible for the LHC’s management to give so much emphasis to these misleading probability calculations, when the real chance is clearly higher.”

p. 9
It is more likely the risk pointed out by Ord would not have been overlooked if a plurality of expertise had been in the LSAG team, in this case the plurality including safety experts, and ethicists.

4. Conclusion

The process used to produce and review the LSAG reports on the LHC risk can be seen to be, from a number of authoritative standpoints, out of date. Further, as the analogue of the regulator, CERN Council has a conflict of interest, and is under-constituted to assess such a novel, potentially catastrophic and therefore sensitive risk.

On this basis, a new review panel based on best practice for such panels should be set up to advise national, EU, and governments worldwide on the adequacy or otherwise of the LSAG report, and the LHC not operate until that panel has reported.
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"Falls Gott die Welt geschaffen hat, war seine Hauptsorge sicher nicht, sie so zu machen, dass wir sie verstehen können."

Albert Einstein

[ralfkannenberg]

Hallo zusammen,

ich möchte anregen, allfällige Diskussionen in diesem von mir zu diesem Thema eröffneten Kommentar-Thread zu tätigen.

Ich hatte übrigens einmal vor einiger Zeit hier um eine Originalquelle zu Dr.Leggett gebeten.


Freundliche Grüsse, Ralf

[Kondensat]

alleine wenn ich mir die tabelle anschaue, muss ich lachen



allein zeile 2 ist wohl der blanke hohn! wer bitte soll denn ein risiko besser abschätzen können als fachleute zum thema?!?!? die hier genannte forderung ist abolut weltfremd und idiotisch!

als ich das las, konnte ich das ganze geschreibsel schon nicht mehr ernst nehmen! diese forderung ist so, als ob ein gremium bestehend aus meiner mutter, meinem anwalt, meinem arbeitgeber und meiner ex-freundin entscheiden darf, welche frau ich mir als nächstes aussuche
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resistance is futile....

[missionman]

[Solkar]

@Gruber

Thank you very much for citing the review and compiling the short summary above!


@Kondensat,
@ missionman:
Gentlemen,

telling stupid jokes might be a funny thing to do, but it's hardly a source of analysis - so what's your point, pls?

[missionman]

[galileo2609]

[Gruber]

show that the study is "rubbish", then. If you would find one point you would not invalidate other points. By now you have not made one point.
_________________
"Falls Gott die Welt geschaffen hat, war seine Hauptsorge sicher nicht, sie so zu machen, dass wir sie verstehen können."

Albert Einstein

[galileo2609]

Hallo 'Gruber',

das wird nicht nötig sein. Zeige mir einen Punkt bei Leggett, der einer Beachtung würdig wäre. Du wirst keinen finden, ausser du kommst aus Basel oder Wien.

Grüsse galileo2609

[Solkar]

@galileo2609:

[galileo2609]

[galileo2609]

[Kondensat]

wer ist solkar eigentlich?!
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resistance is futile....

[ralfkannenberg]

[ralfkannenberg]