CORE 2500 Environment, Health, and Scientific Controversies Test 1

Three levels of Society

micro, meso, macro

Social structure (macrosocial)

Position in various society-wide hierarchies

Demographic questions in surveys

More privileged or dominant v. other

Examples of macro-type variables (more privileged in US society listed on left):

Class: upper, middle, lower

Gender: male v. female (gender v. sex)

Sexuality: heterosexual v. other

Race: white v. African American, Asian, Indigenous

Race v. Cline (race is a cultural category)

Ethnicity: European, Latinx

Location: Geographical positions

These positions can be analyzed as society-wide structures.

They can also be analyzed as subjective, individual identities.

Institutions, fields, or systems (Meso level)

Institutions: focus on shared norms and values

Fields: focus on capital levels and conflict

Systems: focus on functions delivered, infrastructure

Examples in this course: Industry (tobacco). Science (independent and industry). Government: courts, legislatures, regulators. Media. Religion, Political Civil Society (NGOs)

Characteristics of fields:

Generally have some autonomy from the government (e.g., industry, the media)

They produce some kind of good or service

Generally have different organizations or networks with relationships of cooperation and conflict

Have dominant and subordinate positions in the field

Types of Capital

financial, social (their networks), cultural (their knowledge of the field), symbolic (similar to prestige), institutional (their position in an organization)

networks, organizational (microsocial)

This area is a research field with methodologies for measuring and mapping networks.

Formal organizations, such as a government agency, university, corporation

Social networks: relationships between actors (such as personal and professional)

Examples of micro-level variables: social network (social support or capital), kinship position

Actors: individuals (such as an individual scientist) or collective (an organization, a coalition, network, etc.)

Strategic action: def. and elements (goal, means, frames, target, partners)

Definition: what actors do to attempt to change a situation or conditions

Goal: what the actor wants to achieve

Means: the tactic or tactic that an actor uses

Frames: the meanings that an actor uses

Target: who or what is the target of action (such as a scientist who speaks out publicly)

Partners: the people or organizations that are part of the coalition that an actor assembles

Knowledge sequestration

keep negative research away from public eye

ex: industry strategy in history of lead suppression

Threshold argument (for lower regulation)

Def. There is a lower threshold of exposure below which there are no health effects.

Used to classify a chemical or exposure risk as safe. Minimization strategy.

Reduces regulation

Convinced the surgeon general

ex: lead

Types of capital for a scientist

financial, social (their networks), cultural (their knowledge of the field), symbolic (similar to prestige), institutional (their position in an organization)

Dose-response relationship (why it matters for increasing confidence in a causal effect)

the connection between the amount of exposure to a substance (the dose) and the resulting change in an organism (the response)

One way to increase confidence that the effect is real.

Suppression mechanisms

Censorship, funding insecurity, reputation attack, personal insecurity, employment insecurity, litigation and investigations

Censorship Supression

Orders or procedures from within the institution where the scientist works or by the funder of the research that prevents the scientist from sharing his/her findings with the public. This can come via either direct orders not to speak to the media or through excessive delays in media approvals which result in lack of media exposure. It can also include restrictions on travel funding, editing or censuring of proposed presentations, and refusal by media outlets for publish rejoinders to attacks.

Funding Insecurity

The source of funding for a scientist's research is removed in response to displeasure with the research results.

Reputation Attack

Negative coverage of the scientist in the media, including disputes over methodology, allegations of scientific misconduct, and allegations of mental instability.

Employment Insecurity

This may include attempts by industry or other actors to pressure the organization to have the scientist dismissed, pressure from higher levels of government to dismiss the scientist, actual dismissals, and reassignment of the scientist to other positions. These are usually accompanied by an internal investigation by the employer that may include records requests.

Litigation and Investigations

Threatened libel suits, Congressional investigations, professional association investigations. Can include records requests as part of the investigation.

Personal Attack

Personal insecurity emerging from hate mail, FOIA attacks, hacking of email, personal safety threats, disruptions at events, and stalking.

Kangaroo Court, How does it relate to Needleman winning his case?

A farce trial - one that lacks proper procedure and fairness and where the outcome is predetermined

Goes to faculty assembly to demand open hearing.

400 scientists sign petition for open hearing.

Sustainability (two definitions)

1. UN (1987) Gro Brundtland: meet needs of present w/o compromising those of future generations

2. Herman Daly (economist): Economy cannot take more from the environment than it can replenish and cannot put more waste into the environment than it can process or absorb.

Sustainability transition

technological system associated with an industry

Example. Chemistry—transition from leaded to non-leaded gasoline and paint products

Example. Food—transition from industrial agriculture to sustainable agriculture

Niche-regime relationship

The innovations are developed in protected spaces called "niches" (universities, nonprofits, start-ups, R&D labs of companies). These actors generally are "challengers" to the regime.

Regime: an established or stabilized system/incumbent

Incumbent-challenger relationship

The incumbents are actors who manage a stabilized technological system (often large corporations), and they adopt or reject the niche innovations.

Suppression mechanisms: blacklist

ex: EPA-Water Environment Federation (industry group) created the Biosolids Cooperative Research and Development Project. It created a database of research to be used in the National Biosolids Public Acceptance Campaign. Used to discredit scientists. Lewis calls it a "blacklist of scientists who publish negative reports concerning biosolids"

Citizen-scientist coalition (how it worked for Wing as an example)

Scientist(s) work with community members to develop research and policy change.

Wing Example: ran community-based participatory research where residents near hog CAFOs helped design and take part in studies (like door-to-door health surveys paired with mobile air-pollution monitoring) in black and low income communities

Citizen science

Can involve citizen science, where citizens directly gather data, either on their own initiative or with support or supervision by scientists.

Example: community health survey.

Knowledge sequestration (ag-gag laws)

state statutes that criminalize undercover filming, photography, or whistleblowing inside agricultural facilities and factory farms without the owner's explicit consent

Wing Example: 2002 American Legislative Exchange Council: Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act

Cannot - photograph agricultural facilities with intent to commit crime or defame owner. Laws passed in various states

Endocrine-mimicking chemicals (GMOs)

Chemical risk is not just cancer.

Can include subclinical (non-visible) health risks.

Can also include clinical manifestations of hormone disruption.

Teratogenic effects (embryo or fetus)

Toxome

toxic substances in the environment and in bodies

Sustainability niche

an alternative in a sociotechnical system that would increase sustainability if incorporated into the regime as mainstream (ex. Green chemistry, sustainable agriculture)

Sustainability niches in the chemistry and materials industry

Various methods in agriculture to control pests: multicropping, biological controls, etc.

Bioplastics (from plant material). Can be less toxic and biodegradable than PVCs

Wet cleaning

Genetically modified food

genetic mixing from more distant species

Example: add cold gen found in flounders (fish) to fruit

Chapela's use of both an agonistic and dissent approach

Quist and Chapela's agnostic response to the criticism involved providing further evidence to support their claims and defining technical territory of their research as opposed to that of their critics. Quist and Chapela provided additional evidence to Nature and wrote letters to critics to defend their claims. They also criticized the limited perspectives of their critics by suggesting that there was a whole new territory to be studied with their observation of transgenic constructs that weren't whole, and establishing a new field of transgenic ecology.

Chapela's dissident response included a quasi-protest for tenure, participation in a panel associated with a biotechnology art exhibition, and a public discussion with other dissenting scientists. Specifically, with his open office hours, Chapela leaned on the field of advocacy but determined that he wanted to maintain his image as a professor and scientist.

Agonistic approach

Remain focused on evidence and scientific argument, stay within the scientific field as the point of reference.

Dissent approach

The idea of going outside the scientific field when facing suppression for broader publicity and support (allies outside scientific field)

Mobilized public

an important and potentially crucial factor in explaining why sometimes public health or environmental risk claims by scientists can get translated into a policy response

Citizen groups organize to advocate for policy change. Can be through protest or working within institutions. Can include occupational groups (farmers) and some government officials (often local).

Citizen-scientist coalition (Chapela example)

led by Acción Colectiva, composed of 53 scientists and 22 organizations to ban GM maize in Mexico

Countervailing power: definition and how countervailing industrial power played a role in the GMO food controversy

one industry provides a counterweight to the power of another industry

can have other forms, such as labor unions or religious organizations

powerful gmo companies (monsanto/bayer/dow) faced countervailing power from consumer food companies (gerber, heinz, fritoy-lay, mccdonalds)

Loss of biodiversity with GMOs

due to loss of heirloom seed stocks

Benefits of nuclear energy

Low greenhouse gas emissions.

Baseload power for electricity (stable). Not intermittent like solar and wind

Domestic energy source

Risks of of nuclear energy

Potential for meltdown or accident. Terrorist vulnerability.

Cost in comparison with several other sources.

Nuclear waste storage; Risks to workers (less so in well-functioning power plants)

Non-ionizing v ionizing radiation

Ionizing: Sufficient energy to turn a particle or atom to an ion by releasing an electron, associated with genetic damage and stronger health effects, mainly x-rays

Non-ionizing: ultraviolet, visible light, infrared, microwaves, radio waves, ELF waves

Karen Silkwood, why was she important in the rise of the US anti-nuclear movement?

Karen Silkwood was a lab technician and union activist at a Kerr-McGee plutonium plant who, after documenting serious plant safety violations and radiation exposures, died in a suspicious 1974 car crash while driving to meet a journalist with evidence. Her death turned her into a martyr-like symbol of corporate negligence and cover-up in the nuclear industry, galvanizing public distrust of nuclear power and fueling the broader anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s.

Meta-analysis

Selects multiple studies based on quality of methods. Analyzes results.

Sometimes pools the results.

Microwave

longer than visible light, lower frequency

Common uses: heating food, cell-phone communication, military and aircraft radar

Hegemony

influence of one field on another. Creates limitations and boundaries on the other field.

Ex. Industry shaping of the entire microwave risk research field

Undone science (what it is and why it happens)

Research that is not conducted because it is in conflict with incumbents and a sociotechnical regime but could be of value to mobilized publics.

Specific symbolic capital (in the relevant research field) vs general capital

Specific/symbolic capital = credibility recognized only within a particular field (e.g., a scientist's standing among other scientists, based on methodology, publications, peer recognition).

General capital = capital that transfers across fields — money, political power, institutional connections, public visibility — and works regardless of specialized expertise.

Crucial experiment

"definitive" research project that will resolve the controversy - Sociologically naïve view about capacity of crucial experiments to resolve controversies

ex. interphone study

Interpretive flexibility

Same data can be interpreted in multiple ways.

Experimenter's regress

Results that disagree with your view may be the result of a methodological decision. Leads to the need for new experiments with altered methods. Can be repeated.

Non-linear dose-response relationship

Biologic response is NOT directly proportionate to radiation dose (curved graph)

It is possible that there is an optimal level of dose of EMF that is associated with animal disease outcomes. Lower and higher doses have lower responses. Makes regulation difficult.

Polarization

Division into two opposite positions

ex. climate science

Resistance to belief change

New information is in conflict with deeply held beliefs associated with an underlying political or social identity.

Selective exposure bias

The tendency to predominately seek out attitude- consistent information and avoid attitude-challenging information - students who do not believe in global warming avoid classes.

Five types of climate denialism

Trend denial. Global warming or climate change does not exist.

Attribution denial. It exists but is not necessarily caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

Impact denial. Its impact is not that great.

Action denialism. It exists and is caused largely by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, but the solutions are too expensive or impractical.

Urgency denial. Don't need to undertake urgent action (e.g., strong policies for an energy transition) because it is a long-term problem.

Misinformation vs lack of information vs disinformation

Disinformation is false or manipulated information intentionally spread to deceive, mislead, or cause harm.

Misinformation is false or inaccurate information spread unintentionally by someone who believes it is true or does not realize it is wrong.

Lack of information is an absence of data, facts, or knowledge on a specific topic, rather than the presence of incorrect or misleading content.

Chapela Case - GMO

Chapela and Quist found transgenic DNA in native maize from remote Oaxaca, Mexico, analyzed the samples at UC Berkeley, and published their findings as a "Letter to Nature" reporting introgression of GM traits into wild maize populations.

The agricultural biotech industry was hit hardest, since the letter undermined the narrative that GM crops were contained and controllable — jeopardizing hopes that the EU would soon embrace GM crops.

Critics pushed back hard: the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center couldn't replicate the results in samples from the same time/place; an editorial in Transgenic Research attacked their methodology; AgBioWorld Foundation scientists argued the gene flow was harmless and inevitable; and Nature published two critical rebuttals plus an editor's note retracting support for the original paper — badly damaging Quist and Chapela's credibility.

Chapela faced personal consequences too: he was allegedly pressured by Mexico's Biosafety Commissioner, Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, to withhold publication, and he later struggled to secure tenure, largely due to the credibility attacks from critics.

In response, Quist and Chapela took an "agnostic" scientific approach — submitting further evidence to Nature, writing rebuttal letters, and reframing the debate by arguing their critics had too narrow a view, proposing a new field of "transgenic ecology" built around their observations of fragmented transgenic constructs.

Chapela also pursued a more "dissident" track: a quasi-protest over his tenure case, participation in a biotech-themed art exhibition panel, and public debates with other skeptical scientists. Through open office hours he engaged in advocacy, but ultimately chose to preserve his identity primarily as a scientist/professor rather than an activist.

Wing Case - CAFOs

Steve Wing's research threatened the hog/pork industry by exposing the public health harms of industrial pig farm Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). He found that these operations disproportionately affected the health and wellness of low-income communities, and specifically used the term "environmental racism" to highlight that the residents most impacted were predominantly African American.

In response to his findings, industry lobbyists threatened Wing with a lawsuit. The Pork Council went further, launching an investigation into his research that included attempts to access private information — specifically the locations and identities of the community residents involved in his studies. Facing this pressure, Wing was able to negotiate a resolution: he and his research team secured the right to redact any details that would reveal participants' identities, allowing his work to continue while protecting the communities he studied.

Interphone Case - Cellphones

The Interphone study found essentially no evidence linking phone usage to glioma or meningioma overall. The only instance of an elevated odds ratio (OR) occurred in a subgroup where the reported data contained impossible values, undermining that result's reliability. However, the study did find that people who used their phones on one particular side of the head faced a greater risk of developing a tumor on that same side, and that glioma was more likely to occur in the temporal lobe than in other brain regions.

Elisabeth Cardis, a key researcher associated with Interphone, used the metaphor of smoke to convey her belief that the data pointed to real risk from phone usage — a rhetorical choice that lent her interpretation added credibility precisely because the underlying numbers themselves were not strongly conclusive.

When compared to Lennart Hardell's research, Interphone's OR values were consistently lower. Hardell argued that Interphone's low participation rate biased its results toward an OR of 1 (no effect), and his own studies produced ORs reaching as high as 5 in some groups, with his lowest reported OR still at 1.04 — never dropping below the no-effect threshold. This contrast illustrates "interpretive flexibility": using the same general subject matter, Hardell reached notably different conclusions by challenging Interphone's methodology and participant numbers.

What causes Govt Regulatory Response US (see chart)

Categories: Severe human health, Bio (animal) & Epidem (Human), Replication, Wide spread risk, Alternative product, Large Social movement

Outcome: replicated evidence, broad/widespread risk, availability of an alternative, and social mobilization — not with the severity of health harm itself.