Publications Details
Decisions in the face of risk
The author of a popular book on risk and decision analysis made the statement that "The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mastery of risk: the notion that the future is more than a whim of the gods and that men and women are not passive before nature." (Bernstein 1998, 1) While this book was written primarily from the perspective of economics and finances, the premise that the tools for making a reasoned prediction of the future, based on past experience and present decisions, goes to the heart of what it means to "do" systems engineering. This paper examines the nature of uncertainty, risk and decision analysis, particularly as understood within the historical context and the continuing development of the "art and science of decision." © 2010 by Mark J. De Spain.