Today, Hwang Woo-Suk, the Korean stem cell researcher, stands for the most spectacular forgery scandal in biomedicine, if not in the history of science. Within a few weeks, his exposure as a stem cell forger has downsized the ‘pride of Korea’ into ‘the Hwang case’. Interpretations of...

The invocation of the precautionary principle, for instance, to prohibit the commercialisation of genetically modified crops in Austria, has been criticised for blurring the boundaries between science and politics. Three different understandings of precaution arise in the policy process around...