Shahin Farshchi, PhD

How good is good enough? Pharmaceuticals undergo rigorous safety and efficacy trials that take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to complete. New aircraft designs take even longer and cost more money to certify, which is why we fly on planes whose designs date back to the seventies. Gadgets undergo a battery of safety tests. Software products are handed over to armies of test engineers to validate. Despite these lengthy, expensive, and onerous processes, approved drugs are recalled due to side-effects, cars are recalled, airplanes malfunction, Galaxy Note 7s catch on fire, and we have grown accustomed to the spinning wheel of death. We set a very high bar for products we consume. We expect, with high confidence, that they will function as expected and put us at zero risk of harm.