Without Evidence, There Is No Answer
Uncertainty and Scientific Ethos in theSilent Spring[s] of Rachel Carson
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3914207 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kenny Walker (University of Arizona, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 101-116 |
| Publication date | 2013-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2201-1919 • E-ISSN: 2201-1919 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/22011919-3610369 |
| OpenAlex | W2188333895 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 20 |
The 50th year anniversary of Rachel Carson's monumental Silent Spring invites reflection on how the controversy over chemical pesticides shaped environmental discourse in the modern era. This essay focuses on uncertainty as a boundary device that shapes scientific ethos in crucial ways and negotiates a relationship between technical science and public deliberation. Situated in rhetorical analysis, the author takes a comparative approach towards the use of uncertainty and scientific ethos in the Silent Spring controversy. Drawing from Carson's published book, and from the famous CBS Reports investigative television program seven months after the book's publication, this essay demonstrates how CBS Reports directly received, and amplified, Carson's uncertainty frameworks, and used them to drive the public evaluation of scientific ethos. This analysis reveals three ways uncertainty shapes scientific ethos: uncertainty as a probability (ethos of expertise), as a moral certainty (ethos of civic participant), and as an unknown or unconcern (ethos of ignorance). Finally, the author suggests that the circulation of these uncertainty frameworks of scientific ethos helped drive the momentum from the books' publication, to public evaluation, to policy-making, and suggests these uncertainty frameworks are enduring forces in debates about the role of experts in scientific controversies
Art · Certainty · Deliberation · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ethos · Ignorance · Literature · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Situated · Sociology · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Computer Science · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Law · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
The sociology of science
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Hedging in Scientific Research Articles
A Normative Approach to the Study of Uncertainty and Communication
Communicating Uncertainty
The Honest Broker
The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson
Accommodating Science
Representing Uncertainty in Global Climate Change Science and Policy
Silence, Miss Carson!" Science, Gender, and the Reception of "Silent Spring
The Scientific Life
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,38 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2022 (5) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |