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Flexible Interpretations of “Acid Rain” and the Construction of Scientific Uncertainty in Political Settings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Stephen C. Zehr
Stephen C. Zehr*
Affiliation:
University of Southern Indiana, USA
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Abstract

Much research in social studies of science addresses scientists' interpretative flexibility in the construction of scientific knowledge. This flexibility is readily visible among different scientists' competing knowledge-claims as well as in their accounts across different social settings. This article illustrates this process and discusses some of its implications through a case study of descriptions of acid rain in published scientific papers and Congressional testimony. As acid rain was flexibly reconstructed in Congressional testimony, its meanings and implications for control legislation became more contested. Some descriptions of acid rain that were intended to usefully clarify the phenomenon actually contributed to an impression of scientific uncertainty, and thereby further polarized debate.

Type
Acid Rain
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , August 1994 , pp. 205 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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