Doctoral Dissertation: An Ecology of Nuclear Weapons Testing

本奖项为博士论文研究改进奖。该项目将审查发展生态学方法，以了解在美国大气层核武器试验期间放射性沉降物对人类健康的影响。具体而言，它将研究在1950年代末和1960年代初，暴露的关键生物和生态途径的生态概念如何重新制定风险和安全概念。该项目将运用科学史、环境史和历史地理学中许多最新的方法论和理论方法，为原子能委员会（AEC）在武器试验计划的早期阶段的安全实践提供新的、富有智力成果的解释。三个主要的研究问题推动了这项调查，它们如下。将辐射与人类健康之间的关系概念化的生态学方法是如何出现的？核武器试验的政治必要性在哪些方面影响了原子能委员会的制度做法和从事辐射安全问题的科学家的科学做法？在放射性尘埃争议期间，AEC内部和委员会外部的科学行动主义如何影响科学与公共政策之间关系的观念？虽然这篇论文本质上是历史性的，但它将为当前关于风险管理和环境监管的政策辩论提供信息。通过关注许多科学的不同实践，本论文将阐明人们客观地认识与环境污染物相关的风险的复杂方式。它将证明，政策规划者忽视了依赖于真理对应理论的过时的客观性概念；相反，它将建议政策制定者也采用一些科学的思维方式来思考风险感知和管理问题。

This award is for a doctoral dissertation research improvement grant. The project will examine the development of ecological ways of understanding the effects of radioactive fallout upon human health during the atmospheric nuclear weapons testing period in the United States. Specifically, it will examine how ecological conceptions of critical biological and ecological pathways of exposure served to reformulate notions of risk and safety during the late 1950s and early 1960s. This project will apply a number of recent methodological and theoretical approaches in the history of science, environmental history, and historical geography to provide new and intellectually productive interpretations regarding the safety practices of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) during the early years of the weapons testing program. Three primary research questions drive this investigation, and they are the following. How did ecological approaches for conceptualizing the relationship between radiation and human health emerge and structure the fallout controversy? In what ways did the political imperatives of nuclear weapons testing shape the institutional practices of the AEC and the scientific practices of scientists engaged in the question of radiation safety? How did scientific activism both within the AEC and outside of the Commission during the fallout controversy affect notions about the relationship between science and public policy? Although this dissertation is historical in nature, it will inform current policy debates regarding risk management and environmental regulation. By focusing on the divergent practices of many sciences, this dissertation will illuminate the complex ways that one comes to know objectively the risks associated with environmental pollutants. It will demonstrate that policy planners discount outmoded notions of objectivity that rely on correspondence theories of truth; it will suggest instead that policy makers also bring to bear a number of scientific ways of thinking to questions of risk perception and management.