Scientists, the Public, the State, and the Debate Over the Environmental and Human Health Effects of Nuclear Testing in Britain, 1950–1958
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8955869 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christoph Laucht (0000-0002-8592-4821, Swansea University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 221-251 |
| Publication date | 2015-12-09 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Historical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0018246x15000096 |
| OpenAlex | W2271630720 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 28 |
This article uses the debate over environmental and human health effects of nuclear testing to shed light on the ambivalent relationship between scientists, the public, and the state in Britain during the crucial, but often overlooked, period leading up to the first cycle of anti-nuclear weapons mass protests. In this, it examines how members of Britain's main organization of nuclear scientists – the Atomic Scientists’ Association (ASA) – used their expertise in their engagement with both the public and the state to assess these effects of fallout from nuclear testing. What made the ASA stand out from other groups of the atomic scientists’ movement was its ambivalent relationship with the government. This was, by and large, the result of several ASA members’ occupational backgrounds in government employment and the association's self-imposed adherence to an ambiguous principle of scientific ‘objectivity’ in political matters. The ASA's role in the debate over fallout thus exemplifies a basic dilemma that many scientists in Britain and other Western liberal democracies faced between their roles as ‘objective’ and ‘unpolitical’ scientific experts, on the one hand, and socially responsible scientists, on the other, illustrating the ambivalent position of experts and uses of their knowledge
Ambivalence · Dilemma · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Government (linguistics · Nuclear weapon · Objectivity (philosophy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public health · Public relations · Sociology · State (computer science · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Medicine · Nuclear Issues and Defense · Psychology · Social Psychology · Twentieth Century Scientific Developments
Transnational Professional Activism and the Prevention of Nuclear War in Britain
What are the roles for health professionals in addressing the rising threat of the use of nuclear weapons? With particular reference to the activities of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War 1951–1963
The politics of the unknown
What in the hell’s this?’ Rehearsing nuclear war in Britain’s Civil Defence Corps
‘The monster’? The British popular press and nuclear culture, 1945–early 1960s
Disciplining Experts
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), man of dissent
The strath report
The history of nuclear weapons
A political H‐Bomb’
Bad Weather
Disciplining Experts
Home Defence and the Sandys Defence White Paper, 1957
Military nuclear relations between the United States and Great Britain under the terms of the McMahon Act, 1946–1958
Never a credible weapon’
Scientific Dissent amid the United Kingdom Government's Nuclear Weapons Programme
Scientists and the Problem of the Public in Cold War America, 1945-1960
The Birth of Living Radium
Survival Is Your Business
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2018 - 2023 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |