Abstract
US testing of nuclear weapons has resulted in about 800,000 premature fatal cancers throughout the globe, and the nuclear tests of China, France, India, Russia, and the UK have added to this total. Surprisingly, however, these avoidable deaths have not received much attention, as compared, for example, to the smaller number of US fatalities on 9-11-01. This essay (1) surveys the methods and models used to assess effects of low-dose ionizing radiation from above-ground nuclear weapons tests and (2) explains some of the epistemological and logical problems (with these methods and models) that have caused scientists to decide against health screening of the most likely test victims. It also (3) argues that, once the faulty presuppositions and question-begging frames about testing and screening are recognized, there are compelling arguments in favor of nuclear-test nations' screening fallout victims, at least among their citizens. Finally, it (4) suggests that logically and epistemically flawed fallout studies/recommendations against screening are more like to occur when scientists adopt a Laudan-style comparativist rationality, rather than when they adopt a metascience more like that of Kuhn and others.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbott, A., and Barker, S.: 1996, 'Chernobyl damage underestimated', Nature 380(6576), 658–659.
Advisory Committee for Energy-Related Epidemiologic Research (ACERER) of the US Department of Health and Human Services: 1998, Resolution with Regard to Exposures of the American People to Fallout from the Nevada Test Site, Washington, DC: ACERER.
Ball, H.: 1986, Justice Downwind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Baverstock, K. F.: 1991, 'DNA instability, paternal irradiation and leukaemia in children around Sellafield', International Journal of Radiation Biology 60, 581–595.
Beauchamp, T., and Childress, J.: 1993, Principles of Biomedical Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Campbell, P.: 1996, 'Chernobyl's Legacy to Science', Nature 380(6576), 653–654.
Care, N.: 1978, 'Participation and Policy', Ethics 88, 316–337.
Clarke, R.: 1999, 'Control of low-level radiation exposure', Journal of Radiological Protection 19, 107–115.
Dubrova, Y. E., Nesterov, V. N., Krouchinsky, N. G., Ostapenko, V. A., Neumann, R., Neil, D. L. and Jeffreys, A. J.: 1996, 'Human minisatellite mutation rate after the Chernobyl accident', Nature 380 (6576), 683–686.
Gallagher, C.: 1993, American Ground Zero. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Grossman, C. M., Morton, W. E. and Nussbaum, R. H.: 1996, 'Hypothyroidism and spontaneous abortions among Hanford, Washington, downwinders', Arch. Environ. Health 51(3), 175–176.
Gundersen, A.: 1994, 'Research Traditions and the Evolution of Cold War Nuclear Strategy', Philosophy of the Social Sciences 24, 291–319.
International Atomic Energy Agency.: 1991, International Chernobyl Project: Technical report. Vienna: IAEA.
Institute of Medicine (IOM): 1998, Exposure of the American People to Iodine 131 from Nevada Nuclear-Bomb Tests: Review of the National Cancer Institute Report and Public Health Implications. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Jones, R. R., and Southwood, R. (eds.): 1987, Radiation and Health: The Biological Effects of Low-Level Exposure to Ionizing Radiation. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Kuhn, T.: 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Laudan, Larry.: 1994, The Book of Risks. New York: Wiley.
Laudan, L.: 1977, Progress and its Problems, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Laudan, L.: 1997, 'How about Bust? Factoring Explanatory Power Back into Theory Evaluation', Philosophy of Science 64, 306–316.
Leigh, J. P.: 1995, Causes of Death in the Workplace. London: Quorum Books.
Lown, Bernard.: 1995, Foreword, in Makhijani, Hu, and Yih, xiii—xviii.
MacLachlan, A.: 1992, 'Rising children's thyroid cancers indicate growing Chernobyl link', Nucleonics Week 33(37), 1 ff.
MacLachlan, A.: 1995, 'French Academy rejects 1990 ICRP norms as not based in science', Nucleonics Week 36(47), 1 ff.
Makhijani, A., Hu, H. and Yih, K. (eds.): 1995, Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Makhijani, A. and Saleska, S.: 1992 High-Level Dollars, Low-Level Sense, New York: Apex.
Mayo, D.: 1996, Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mayo, D.: 1997, 'Duhem's Problem, the Bayesian Way, and Error Statistics, or 'What's belief Got to Do with It, Philosophy of Science 64, 222–244.
Mill, J. S.: 1910, Utilitarianism; on Liberty; and Representative Government, New York: Dutton.
Moore, G. E.: 1959, Principia Ethica, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
National Cancer Institute (NCI): 1997, Estimated Exposures and Thyroid Doses Received by the American People from Iodine-131 in Fallout Following Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Tests, NIH Publication 97–4264, Washington, DC: National Institutes of Health.
National Research Council (NRC): 1996, Understanding Risk in a Democracy, Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Nussbaum, R. H., Belsey, R.E. and Koehnlein, W.: 1990, 'Recent mortality statistics for distally exposed A-bomb survivors: The lifetime cancer risk for exposures under 50 cGy(rad)', Medicina Nuclearis(Berlin, GDR) 2, 163–174.
Nussbaum, R. H.: 1990, 'New data inconsistent with scientific consensus on low-level radiation cancer risks', Health Phys. 56, 961–962.
Nussbaum, R. and Koehnlein, W.: 1995, 'Health consequences of exposures to ionizing radiation from external and internal sources: Challenges to radiation protection standards and biomedical research', Medicine and Global Survival 2(4), 198–213.
Rush, D. and Geiger, J.: 1997–1998, 'NCI study on I-131 exposure from nuclear testing: a preliminary critique', Physicians for Social Responsibility 4(3, Winter), 1–5. Shcherbak: 1996.
Shrader-Frechette, K.: 1991, Risk and rationality: Philosophical foundations for populist reforms, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Shrader-Frechette, K.: 2003, Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy, New York: Oxford University Press.
US Congress: 1998, Hearing before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs; US Senate; 105th Congress; National Cancer Institute's Management of Radiation Studies, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shrader-Frechette, K. Comparativist Rationality and. Topoi 23, 153–163 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-004-5373-x
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-004-5373-x