Safety assessment of technologies and interventions is often underdetermined by evidence. For example, scientists have collected evidence concerning genetically modified plants for decades. This evidence was used to ground opposing safety protocols for “stacked genetically modified” plants, in which two or more genetically modified plants are combined. Evidence based policy would thus be rendered more effective by an approach that accounts for underdetermination. Douglas (2012) proposes an explanatory approach, based on the criteria of transparency, empirical competence, internal consistency of explanations, and predictive potency. However, sometimes multiple explanations can satisfy these criteria. We propose an additional criterion based on converse abduction, where explanations are selected on the basis of ontological background assumptions as well as by evidence. We then apply our proposed scheme to the case of the regulation of stacked genetically modified plants. We discuss the implications and suggest follow-up work concerning the generalizability of the approach.

技术和干预措施的安全性评估通常缺乏证据。例如，数十年来，科学家已经收集了有关转基因植物的证据。该证据被用来为“堆叠的转基因”植物建立相反的安全规程，其中将两种或更多种转基因植物结合在一起。因此，采用一种解释不足的方法，将使基于证据的政策更加有效。Douglas（2012）基于透明性，经验能力，解释的内部一致性和预测效力的标准，提出了一种解释方法。但是，有时有多种解释可以满足这些条件。我们提出了基于反绑架的附加标准，根据本体论背景假设以及证据选择解释。然后，我们将我们提出的方案应用于堆叠式转基因植物的调控情况。我们讨论了其含义，并建议了有关该方法可推广性的后续工作。