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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Censorship And Free Speech In Scientific Controversies, Brian Martin
Censorship And Free Speech In Scientific Controversies, Brian Martin
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)
Many publicly debated issues have implications for health, including smoking, pesticides, food additives, seat belts, fluoridation, vaccination and climate change. Campaigners on such issues use a variety of methods, including presenting evidence and arguments, denigrating opponents, lobbying and organising protests. In some cases, campaigners seek to censor opponents, most commonly on the grounds that their views are false and dangerous. To probe rationales for censorship, recent events in the Australian public debate over vaccination are examined. A citizens' group critical of vaccination has come under heavy attack, with pro-vaccination campaigners and politicians trying to shut down the group and restrict …
"What's A Nice Girl Like You Doing With A Nobel Prize?" Elizabeth Blackburn, "Australia's First Women Nobel Laureate And Women's Scientific Leadership, Jane L. Carey
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)
In 2009 Elizabeth Blackburn (along with two of her American colleagues) won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, confirming her position as a global scientific leader. She was immediately celebrated as Australia’s first woman Nobel laureate. However, although 2009 was a ‘bumper’ year for women Nobel laureates, with five winners in total, the media coverage soon became highly negative and discouraging. Much discussion focused not on Blackburn’s scientific work but on her gender – the difficulties it was assumed she must have faced individually as a woman scientist, and her wider leadership role in encouraging and supporting other women …
Speech Acts And Performances Of Scientific Citizenship: Examining How Scientists Talk About Therapeutic Cloning, Nicola J. Marks
Speech Acts And Performances Of Scientific Citizenship: Examining How Scientists Talk About Therapeutic Cloning, Nicola J. Marks
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)
Scientists play an important role in framing public engagement with science. Their language can facilitate or impede particular interactions taking place with particular citizens: scientists’ “speech acts” can “perform” different types of “scientific citizenship”. This paper examines how scientists in Australia talked about therapeutic cloning during interviews and during the 2006 parliamentary debates on stem cell research. Some avoided complex labels, thereby facilitating public examination of this field. Others drew on language that only opens a space for publics to become educated, not to participate in a more meaningful way. Importantly, public utterances made by scientists here contrast with common …
Engendering Scientific Pursuits: Australian Women And Science, 1880-1960, Jane L. Carey
Engendering Scientific Pursuits: Australian Women And Science, 1880-1960, Jane L. Carey
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)
Science is generally perceived as one of the most strongly gendered spheres within modern society. The perceived 'masculine' construction of scientific practice has been the focus of numerous overseas studies of women's historic absence from science. However, the experiences of Australian women scientists, in many ways, stand in stark contrast to this construction. Existing historical accounts of Australian science reveal little about women's participation in the field. It is perhaps surprising to find that, during the first half of this century, women were in fact studying science in quite high numbers. Indeed, few seem to have felt they were doing …
Debating Point' Political Refutation Of A Scientific Theory: The Case Of Polio Vaccines And The Origin Of Aids, Brian Martin
Debating Point' Political Refutation Of A Scientific Theory: The Case Of Polio Vaccines And The Origin Of Aids, Brian Martin
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)
The theory that AIDS developed from contaminated polio vaccines used in Africa in the 1950s has never been properly investigated. Legal action and editorial decisions mean that the published record gives the misleading impression that the theory has been refuted.
The Myth Of The Neutral Social Researcher In Contemporary Scientific Controversies, P Scott, Evelleen Richards, Brian Martin
The Myth Of The Neutral Social Researcher In Contemporary Scientific Controversies, P Scott, Evelleen Richards, Brian Martin
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)
According to both traditional positivist approaches and also to the sociology of scientific knowledge, social analysts should not themselves become involved in the controversies they are investigating. But the experiences of the authors in studying contemporary scientific controversies - specifically, over the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, fluoridation, and vitamin C and cancer - show that analysts, whatever their intentions, cannot avoid being drawn into the fray. The field of controversy studies needs to address the implications of this process for both theory and practice.