Dorothy Nelkin
Biographic Data
| ID | 76167 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dorothy Nelkin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dorothy |
| FAMILY NAME | Nelkin |
| SIGNATURE | NELKIN D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cornell University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 88 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 232 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 88 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1964 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Placing Blame for Devastating Disease
Placing Blame for Devastating Disease Dorothy Nelkin (bio) and Sander L. Gilman (bio) in october 1985 a long article entitled "panic in the west: or, what Hides Behind the Sensationalism of AIDS" appeared in Literaturnaya Gazeta, the official journal of the Soviet Writers Union. Shortly thereafter the journal printed a detailed interview on the same topic with Professor S. Drozdov, the director of the Research Institute of Poliomyelitis and Encep…
University and Military Research
The events leading up to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's decision to divest the controversial Instrumentation Laboratory are vividly set forth in this engrossing case study. The decision, announced on May 20, 1970, followed a year of efforts to cope with dissent focused on the issue of weapons-related research on campus. Several key issues are illuminated in the narrative: the problems of defining appropriate research and public servi…
Savoir scientifique, politiques gouvernementales et démocratie
L'effet du savoir scientifique sur un ensemble de valeurs, définies de façon plutôt vague, que l'on désigne sous le nom de « démocratie », continue de susciter des passions et des analyses, comme en témoignent les revendications populaires en faveur d'une plus grande participation de la population aux processus de prises de décision relatives aux dossiers scientifiques. De telles revendications soulignent l'importance du débat politique dans des …
The DNA Mystique
"The DNA Mystique is a wake-up call to all who would dismiss America's love affair with 'the gene' as a merely eccentric obsession." --In These Times "Nelkin and Lindee are to be warmly congratulated for opening up this intriguing field [of genetics in popular culture] to further study." --Nature The DNA Mystique suggests that the gene in popular culture draws on scientific ideas but is not constrained by the technical definition of the gene as a…
God Talk
Controversies concerning the religious implications of science have grown increasingly strained in recent years. Creation scientists have deployed new strategies to eliminate the teaching of evolution in public schools; right-to-life groups have obstructed fetal tissue research; and clerical groups have criticized genomics and genetic testing. Meanwhile, the Templeton Foundation has begun promoting the idea that there is no conflict between scien…
Cracking the Genome
Kevin Davies, editor of Nature Genetics, is captivated by genetics. Like the reporters in the early days of space launches, he conveys in Cracking the Genome his overwhelming excitement: his purpose is "to capture the excitement, intrigue, mystery, and majesty of the quest for biology's holy grail" (p. 9). Except for the race to outer space, no other area of science and technology has enjoyed such media hype. NASA had a comfortable partnership wi…
Is Bioethics for Sale? The Dilemmas of Conflict of Interest
“Science, wrote a former Dean of Yale University, has moved from the classroom to the board room; from the New England Journal to the Wall Street Journal.”
Communicating Risk--Once Again
L'énergie nucléaire dans le discours féministe
Des sondages récents ont montré que les femmes sont plus opposées que les hommes à l'élec-tronucléaire, et les observateurs ont remarqué que les femmes jouent un rôle important dans le mouvement antinucléaire. La présente étude décrit les différentes tendances idéologiques du discours féministe antinucléaire, et la transposition de ce discours en actions politiques
Creation Versus Evolution At The Millennium
(2000). Creation Versus Evolution At The Millennium. Science as Culture: Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 535-542
Controlling Our Destinies
The Embryo Research Debate
DNA identification and surveillance creep
The use of DNA fingerprinting as a means of identification is expanding. The technology appeals to military, law enforcement, and other government authorities: those seeking evidence to establish the identity of a dead body, a missing person, a relative, or the perpetrator of a crime. The increased use of DNA identification and the development of DNA banking systems have intensified concerns about surveillance and privacy. More than just a source…
Homo Economicus Commercialization of Body Tissue in the Age of Biotechnology
The human body is becoming hot property, a resource to be "mined," "harvested," patented, and traded commercially for profit as well as scientific and therapeutic advances. Under the new entrepreneurial approach to the body old tensions take on new dimensions -- about consent, the fair distribution of tissues and products developed from them, the individual and cultural values represented by the body, and public policy governing the use of organs…
Biological categories and border controls
Looks at the contemporary debate on US immigration, focusing particularly on the increasing articulation of eugenics. Notes that, at times of economic and moral crisis, biological generalizations tend to resurface to provide support for the existing system of privilege and rights, and that the information superhighway provides the perfect vehicle for rapidly spreading beliefs and information. Addresses three specific issues – the genetically dete…
Selling Science
Genes Made Me Do It”
Symposium: Genetics and Crime
The Science Wars
Les « guerres de la science », ou l'attaque defensive contre la « fuite de la science et de la raison », sont dirigees contre des etudes recentes qui assimilent la science a une activite influencee par les forces sociales et politiques. L'interet intellectuel pour la science de la part de non-scientifiques s'est beaucoup developpe depuis plus de vingt ans, en partie comme le resultat de la croissante visibilite de la science dans la culture, en p…
The DNA Mystique
Genetics, god, and sacred DNA
The Social Dynamics of Genetic Testing
This article considers a program to screen school children for Fragile-X Syndrome as a way to explore several features of the growing practice of genetic testing in American society. These include the common practice of predictive testing in nonclinical settings; the economic, entrepreneurial, and policy interests that are driving the development of genetic screening programs; and the public support for genetic testing even when there are no effe…
Challenging Racism and Sexism
Constructing Reproduction Social Bodies
Promotional metaphors and their popular appeal
In a climate of increasing competition for funding and under increasing public scrutiny, scientists have recently increased their efforts to communicate their work to the public in an attempt to improve their public image. This paper looks at the rhetorical strategies employed in this context by scientists in the field of human genetics. From an assessment of the language used in articles about human genetics in the poular media, I suggest that s…
Controversy
This book of controversies over science and technology describes and analyses the struggles between different perspectives: between those who see technological development as a rational and objective process and those who see this process as primarily political. 'No one has produced a more formidable body of work on technology, politics, and decision-making than Dorothy Nelkin; and I, like many others, have come to look forward to each new instal…
The Political Impact of Technical Expertise
Technologies of speed and power airports, power generating facilities, highways, dams are often a focus of bitter opposition. As these technologies become increasingly controversial, scientists, whose expertise forms the basis of technical decisions, find themselves involved in public disputes. This 'public' role of science has generated concern both within the profession and beyond; for a scientist's involvement in controversial issues may viola…
Political Parties and the Nuclear Energy Debate in France and Germany
In the early 1970s, European countries planned dramatic increases in their nuclear energy capacity. A 1972 projection reported that by 1985 the total installed nuclear power in the European Economic Community (EEC) would provide 33 percent of the total electricity consumed, representing an increase from 5,000 mw in 1972 to at least 100,000 mw in 1985, and requiring the construction of six to eight new nuclear plants each year.1 These plans produc…
The Social Dynamics of Genetic Testing
This article considers a program to screen school children for Fragile-X Syndrome as a way to explore several features of the growing practice of genetic testing in American society. These include the common practice of predictive testing in nonclinical settings; the economic, entrepreneurial, and policy interests that are driving the development of genetic screening programs; and the public support for genetic testing even when there are no effe…
DNA identification and surveillance creep
The use of DNA fingerprinting as a means of identification is expanding. The technology appeals to military, law enforcement, and other government authorities: those seeking evidence to establish the identity of a dead body, a missing person, a relative, or the perpetrator of a crime. The increased use of DNA identification and the development of DNA banking systems have intensified concerns about surveillance and privacy. More than just a source…
Aids and the News Media
This article is about how AIDS is reported in newspapers and popular\nmagazines. I am focusing on the print media because they are a major source of\nnews about AIDS, for television conveys mainly images, often through\nfictionalized accounts. As background, I will first review some general\ncharacteristics of risk reporting, suggesting how the norms and practices of\njournalism, the technical uncertainties of risk evaluation, and the pressures\n…
Unpredictability and Life Style in a Migrant Labor Camp
A study of migrant farm workers suggests that the unpredictability of certain social contexts bears significantly on life style. Concepts of time in such a system are based on the assumption of an unpredictable social order where the pattern of expected events and the consequences of behavior cannot be systematically anticipated or controlled. The implications of unpredictability for life style are explored with respect to life in a migrant labor…
The Atom Besieged
Some Social and Political Dimensions of Nuclear Power
Public concerns about the social and political implications of energy choices have found expression in the nuclear debate. The Three Mile Island accident, in its complexity and far-reaching consequences, served to focus criticism of nuclear power that had been building up for a decade. It revealed with striking clarity that technology is a social concept to be understood in terms of social and political relationships if it is to be brought under …
The Economic and Social Setting of Military Takeovers in Africa
Scientific Knowledge, Public Policy, and Democracy
Scientists and Professional Responsibility
What are the implications of heightened concern among scientists about applying their work to the social problems of society? As scientists seek ways to use their expertise directly in the public interest, how will this affect the organization of science as a social system? And how will public involvement of scientists bear on intellectual activities within the disciplines? The effect of the environmental movement on the discipline of ecology pro…
University and Military Research
The events leading up to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's decision to divest the controversial Instrumentation Laboratory are vividly set forth in this engrossing case study. The decision, announced on May 20, 1970, followed a year of efforts to cope with dissent focused on the issue of weapons-related research on campus. Several key issues are illuminated in the narrative: the problems of defining appropriate research and public servi…
Technological Trends and the Organization of Migrant Farm Workers
Several characteristics of the agricultural system in the Eastern United States have long obstructed successful union organization among farm workers despite considerable effort and the exploitative preconditions that have led to organization in other sectors of the labor force. Technological trends in agriculture, however, have begun to affect the structure of the labor force, creating the stability, stratifica-tion, and expectations conducive t…
God Talk
Controversies concerning the religious implications of science have grown increasingly strained in recent years. Creation scientists have deployed new strategies to eliminate the teaching of evolution in public schools; right-to-life groups have obstructed fetal tissue research; and clerical groups have criticized genomics and genetic testing. Meanwhile, the Templeton Foundation has begun promoting the idea that there is no conflict between scien…
Science Studies in the 1990s
I am delighted to receive the J. D. Bernal award, to be in the Netherlands where I lived for a year some 30 years ago, and also to have the opportunity to comment on some of the changes in our field since the first meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) in 1976. I wrote about that meeting in the 4S newsletter, and at that time I said that the papers had focused almost entirely on the dynamics of the scientific community, virtua…
Placing Blame for Devastating Disease
Placing Blame for Devastating Disease Dorothy Nelkin (bio) and Sander L. Gilman (bio) in october 1985 a long article entitled "panic in the west: or, what Hides Behind the Sensationalism of AIDS" appeared in Literaturnaya Gazeta, the official journal of the Soviet Writers Union. Shortly thereafter the journal printed a detailed interview on the same topic with Professor S. Drozdov, the director of the Research Institute of Poliomyelitis and Encep…
Genes Made Me Do It”
Symposium: Genetics and Crime
Genetics, god, and sacred DNA
Observations on Workers' Perceptions of Risk in the Dangerous Trades
In the 1910s, Alice Hamilton, one of the first American specialists in the field of occupational disease, began her work on the risks of the trades.' Today, occupational risks are the focus of increased evaluation, much of it centering on the effects of exposure to chemicals that are indispensable to the industrial economy. Industry in the United States uses an estimated 63,000 commercial chemicals in all aspects of manufacturing, processing, and…
Native Americans and Nuclear Power
Centralizing health care
A Response to Marginality
This paper will explore aspects of the social organization of migrant farm labour crews. These crews constitute a distinctive type of sociocultural organization. However, many of the characteristics of migrant labour crews have developed, not as a reflection of internal cultural values, but as an adaptive response to their marginal position in American society. The marginality of the migrant worker is not adequately reflected in the classic defin…
Savoir scientifique, politiques gouvernementales et démocratie
L'effet du savoir scientifique sur un ensemble de valeurs, définies de façon plutôt vague, que l'on désigne sous le nom de « démocratie », continue de susciter des passions et des analyses, comme en témoignent les revendications populaires en faveur d'une plus grande participation de la population aux processus de prises de décision relatives aux dossiers scientifiques. De telles revendications soulignent l'importance du débat politique dans des …
Biological categories and border controls
Looks at the contemporary debate on US immigration, focusing particularly on the increasing articulation of eugenics. Notes that, at times of economic and moral crisis, biological generalizations tend to resurface to provide support for the existing system of privilege and rights, and that the information superhighway provides the perfect vehicle for rapidly spreading beliefs and information. Addresses three specific issues – the genetically dete…
The Science Wars
Les « guerres de la science », ou l'attaque defensive contre la « fuite de la science et de la raison », sont dirigees contre des etudes recentes qui assimilent la science a une activite influencee par les forces sociales et politiques. L'interet intellectuel pour la science de la part de non-scientifiques s'est beaucoup developpe depuis plus de vingt ans, en partie comme le resultat de la croissante visibilite de la science dans la culture, en p…
Continental Trade Union Organization
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L'evolution du mouvement syndical en Afrique Occidentale
The Economic and Social Setting of Military Takeovers in Africa
African Trade Unions
A Response to Marginality
This paper will explore aspects of the social organization of migrant farm labour crews. These crews constitute a distinctive type of sociocultural organization. However, many of the characteristics of migrant labour crews have developed, not as a reflection of internal cultural values, but as an adaptive response to their marginal position in American society. The marginality of the migrant worker is not adequately reflected in the classic defin…
Unpredictability and Life Style in a Migrant Labor Camp
A study of migrant farm workers suggests that the unpredictability of certain social contexts bears significantly on life style. Concepts of time in such a system are based on the assumption of an unpredictable social order where the pattern of expected events and the consequences of behavior cannot be systematically anticipated or controlled. The implications of unpredictability for life style are explored with respect to life in a migrant labor…
Rural Worker Adjustment to Urban Life. An Assessment of the Research
Migrant Agricultural Workers in America's Northeast
Migrant Agricultural Workers in America's Northeast
Invisible migrant workers
Technological Trends and the Organization of Migrant Farm Workers
Several characteristics of the agricultural system in the Eastern United States have long obstructed successful union organization among farm workers despite considerable effort and the exploitative preconditions that have led to organization in other sectors of the labor force. Technological trends in agriculture, however, have begun to affect the structure of the labor force, creating the stability, stratifica-tion, and expectations conducive t…
The Politics of Housing Innovation
Migrant Agricultural Workers in America's Northeast
Migrant Agricultural Workers in America's Northeast
Nuclear Power and Its Critics
The virtue of children
Massport vs. community
The Political Impact of Technical Expertise
Technologies of speed and power airports, power generating facilities, highways, dams are often a focus of bitter opposition. As these technologies become increasingly controversial, scientists, whose expertise forms the basis of technical decisions, find themselves involved in public disputes. This 'public' role of science has generated concern both within the profession and beyond; for a scientist's involvement in controversial issues may viola…
Ecologists and the Public Interest
hen in the mid-1960s, the environment was recognized as a major public problem, the environmental movement brought the discipline of ecology into public view. The expertise of ecologists was perceived as a social resource, and scientists were thrust into the political arena, forced to face many of the issues and implications of social responsibility. Like other scientists, ecologists discovered that public involvement can have considerable impact…
Trends in Science Policy
Centralizing health care
Scientists and Professional Responsibility
What are the implications of heightened concern among scientists about applying their work to the social problems of society? As scientists seek ways to use their expertise directly in the public interest, how will this affect the organization of science as a social system? And how will public involvement of scientists bear on intellectual activities within the disciplines? The effect of the environmental movement on the discipline of ecology pro…
Paradigmatics
Books
Limits to Science? Issues Raised by the Recombinant DNA Dispute
Limits to Science? Issues Raised by the Recombinant DNA Dispute." Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 4(2), pp. 91–92
Political science (64 works) · Sociology (50 works) · Law (35 works) · Business (20 works) · Law (18 works) · Economics (17 works) · Politics (15 works) · Engineering (14 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · Psychology (13 works)