Imagine “What Life Would Be Like” if our highways were constructed to accommodate the average traffic load of vehicles of average weight. Mass transit systems were designed to move only the average number of passengers during each hour of the day.
Bridges, homes, and industrial and comercial buildings were constructed to withstand the average wind or the average earthquake. Chaos is the word for it. Utter chaos. Lowrance [1976] makes an importante observation on the imperative distinction between the quantification of risk, which is an empirical process, and determination of safety, which is a normative process.
In both of these processes, which are apparently dichotomous, the influence and imprint of the analyst should not be ignored. The essential role of the analyst, sometimes hidden but of explicit, is not unique to risk assessment and management; rather, it is indigenous to the process of modeling and decision-making.
chaos riskmanagement riskveritas
