Celebrate Valentine's Day by going to the AEI program on Panic Attack: The New Precautionary Culture, the Politics of Fear, and the Risks to Innovation, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Feb. 14, 2006.

Our culture is in the grip of the “precautionary principle.” From agricultural biotechnology and biomedicine to geopolitics, international business, education, and our most intimate relationships, risk aversion has become a defining and paralyzing ethic of our time. The notion that we should forsake the products and benefits of new technologies until it is proven that no adverse effects could result reflects an obsessive fear of the unknown.