1st Edition
True Warnings and False Alarms Evaluating Fears about the Health Risks of Technology, 1948-1971
By Allan Mazur
Copyright 2004
200 Pages
by
Routledge
200 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Given time, scientists reach consensus about the truth or falsity of a wide range of alleged hazards. Today, there is broad agreement that CFCs destroy stratospheric ozone. On the other hand, research does not support claims that electromagnetic fields from transmission lines cause a noticeable increase of leukemia. But new allegations continuously arise. Are manufactured chemicals in the... Read more
Preface
1. True Warnings and False Alarms
2. Technology as Friend and Sometime Foe: 1900-1947
3. Lawless‘s Era: 1948-1971
4. Why Experts in Technical Controversies Disagree
5. Evaluating the Lawless Warnings: True or False?
6. Coding the Cases
7. Hallmarks of True and False Alarms
8. Hindsight and Foresight
Appendixes
I. Summary of Cases
II. Case Studies
References
Index
Biography
Allan Mazur is a professor of public affairs in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. An engineer and a sociologist, he has published nearly 200 papers and 5 books, including A Hazardous Inquiry, a study of the Love Canal controversy. Mazur is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was an RFF Gilbert White Fellow in 2000 - 2001.
'A thought-provoking book with a heterogenic collection of cases. The author demonstrates that in some cases the risks were hyped and later proved innocuous. No comparable study exists of warnings that were unheeded, unhyped, and later proved true.' Choice 'An exemplar of applied social science. Until we have evidence otherwise, Mazur‘s hallmarks of true and false alarms should be our guides when deciding whether or not to believe the alarms of our time.' Environmental Science and Policy
