Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Opinion
  • Published:

A route to more tractable expert advice

There are mathematically advanced ways to weigh and pool scientific advice. They should be used more to quantify uncertainty and improve decision-making, says Willy Aspinall.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Estimates from 11 experts of the time-to-failure of an earth dam, once the core starts to leak.

SOURCE: A. J. BROWN & W. P. ASPINALL PROC. 13TH BIENNIAL BRIT. DAMS SOC. CONF. (2004)

References

  1. Cooke, R. M. Experts in Uncertainty: Opinion and Subjective Probability in Science (Oxford Univ. Press, 1991).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Aspinall, W. & Cooke, R. M. Proc. 4th Int. Conf. Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management (eds Mosleh, A. & Bari, R. A.) 3, 2113–2118 (Springer, 1998).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Cooke, R. M., ElSaadany, S. & Huang, X. Reliab. Eng. Syst. Safe. 93, 745–756 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Oppenheimer, M., O'Neill, B. C., Webster, M. & Agrawala, S. Science 317, 1505–1506 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Tyshenko, M. G. & Darshan, S. Summary Report of the Expert Elicitation Workshop Results for Iatrogenic Prion Disease Risks in Canada (Univ. Ottawa, 2009); available at http://www.prionetcanada.ca/files/Expert_Elicitation_Workshop_Summary-Nov._18-093188.pdf

    Google Scholar 

  6. Krupnick, A. J. et al. Not a Sure Thing: Making Regulatory Choices Under Uncertainty (Resouces for the Future, 2006); available at http://www.rff.org/rff/Documents/RFF-Rpt-RegulatoryChoices.pdf

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

See Editorial, page 269 .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Aspinall, W. A route to more tractable expert advice. Nature 463, 294–295 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/463294a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/463294a

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing