Doctoral Dissertation: An Ecology of Nuclear Weapons Testing

该奖项是对博士论文研究改进的奖励。该项目将研究在美国大气核武器试验期间，了解放射性尘埃对人类健康影响的生态学方法的发展。具体地说，它将研究暴露的关键生物学和生态途径的生态概念如何在20世纪50年代末和60年代初重新形成风险和安全概念。这个项目将应用科学史、环境史和历史地理学中的一些最新的方法和理论方法，为原子能委员会(AEC)在武器试验计划早期的安全实践提供新的和智力上富有成效的解释。推动这项调查的三个主要研究问题如下。如何用生态学的方法来概念化辐射与人类健康之间的关系，以及如何构建这场争论的余波？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体制做法和从事辐射安全问题的科学家的科学做法？在这场余波争议中，AEC内外的科学激进主义如何影响有关科学与公共政策之间关系的观念？虽然这篇论文是历史性的，但它将为当前有关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，这篇论文将阐明人们客观地了解与环境污染物相关的风险的复杂方式。它将证明，政策规划者对依赖真理对应理论的过时的客观性概念不屑一顾；相反，它将建议政策制定者也将一些科学的思维方式运用到风险感知和管理问题上。

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.