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COMMENTARY cially ministers, like nothing more than to hide behind scientific experts, because then they can pretend that they have not been responsible for any risky decisions. Risk-policy decisions are always taken in the face of incomplete, uncertain and equivocal evidence, and they always involve judgments about what kinds of risks and what kinds of uncertainties might be deemed acceptable in exchange for some anticipated, or presumed, benefits; but those issues are all strictly non-scientific—a fact which large sections of the general public can readily understand. British and European citizens are not increasingly rejecting science qua science by arguing that the Earth is stationary at the center of the universe, or that antibiotics provide effective treatments for viral infections. It is not science that is being disbelieved6. Trust in partisan scientists may have declined, but independent academic scientists, and …