Chapter 3: “Crash!: Nuclear Fuel Flasks and Anti-Misting Kerosene on Trial”
This chapter is about demonstrations vs. experiments, and it’s also about public opinion and conclusions drawn about technology when one has incomplete information. Remember, when audiences (especially lay audiences) see demonstrations, they only have their eyes and ears to distinguish good from bad information. Without knowing the science and engineering behind the demonstration to the level of an expert, the lay audience will also draw conclusions based on media-filtered messages and their own assumptions. The ideas—correct or incorrect—surrounding technologies are part of the rhetoric of technology. Meaning is conveyed by all kinds of sources—local and broader cultural sources:
- A local source would be an engineer’s explanation, an article’s description, or a teacher’s lesson (among many other sources).
- Broader cultural sources are harder to locate because they range from prevailing cultural assumptions to personal biases.
This chapter attempts to explain how to recognize ambiguity in what are intended to be straight forward, obvious demonstrations.
Three things to take away from Chapter 3
- Demonstrations vs. experiments
- Public opinion—right or wrong—is part of the rhetoric of technology and may determine whether or not a technology is successful. Successful technologies get adopted.
- Media cannot recreate an event or stage an event that allows an audience to directly observe with their senses—taste, touch, hearing, smelling, and seeing. Audiences view them secondhand.
Five Questions to consider (return to these time permitting)
- Consider the ethics of staging a successful train crash.
- Consider the ethics of staging an unsuccessful train crash.
- Why did the FAA, ICI, and NASA feel the need to demonstrate the AMK fuel for the public?
- What assumption(s) would one have to have to believe a public demonstration could prove the efficacy of airplane safety?
- What might AMK have meant for 9/11?
Key Quotations
Demonstrations vs. Experiments
- p. 83: “[T]he citizen need know nothing of how such things work to know how to act in a technological society.”
- “The situation of modern humans…every day we participate in systems whose total cognitive capacity exceeds our individual knowledge, including such devices as cars with electronic ignition systems, microwaves with computer chips that precisely adjust power levels, fax machines that warble to other fax machines, and electronic watches that communicate with a timing radio wave to set themselves
and correct their date.” (N. Katherine Hayles [1999]. How We Became Posthuman. p. 289) - Notice that Hayles, writing in 1999 (actually before), didn’t know about the iWatch or the plethora of mobile communication devices to come.
- “The situation of modern humans…every day we participate in systems whose total cognitive capacity exceeds our individual knowledge, including such devices as cars with electronic ignition systems, microwaves with computer chips that precisely adjust power levels, fax machines that warble to other fax machines, and electronic watches that communicate with a timing radio wave to set themselves
- p. 83: “[O]ne does not do experiments on the uncontroversial, one engages in demonstrations.”
- p. 84: “Demonstrations are designed to educate and convince once the exploration has been done and the discoveries have been made, confirmed, and universally agreed.”
- What’s the problem with stating “universally agreed”?
- p. 84: “[A] good demonstrator” knows he or she must “arrang[e] a convincing performance.”
- p. 85: “The presentation of science to the general public nearly always follows the conventions of the demonstration or the display.”
- p. 85: “A demonstration or display is something that is properly set before the lay public precisely because its appearance is meant to convey an unambiguous message to the senses, the message we are told to take from it.”
- I italicized “unambiguous” because we know the problem with controlling tests, experiments, observations, etc. to avoid ambiguity.
- p. 86: “[I]t is not true that ‘seeing is believing.’”
Nuclear Fuel Flasks
- p. 86: Good test but not effective. “The train crash was a superb demonstration of the strength and integrity of a nuclear fuel flask, but at the same time it was a mediocre experiment on the safety of rail as a means of moving radioactive materials.”
- p. 87: “Greenpeace did not accept that the test involved the most catastrophic accident that could occur during transport of nuclear fuel.”
- p. 89: “[Collins & Pinch] do not know whether the commentary of Greenpeace’s engineers is more accurate than that of the CEGB and this is not [their] business.”
- Collins & Pinch’s goal is to explain how others may interpret the same data or conduct/refute different types of experiments.
- p. 89: “[T]here are many ways in which a real experiment could have been a more demanding test of the waste transport policy.”
- p. 90: “The public, then, were put in a position to read a demonstration of one small thing as a proof of something rather more general.”
- Collins & Pinch don’t seem to explicitly say–but they certainly imply–the public wasn’t convinced transporting nuclear waste be rail was safe.
- p. 95: Greenpeace could have stage their demonstration. “One would imagine that they would first experiment in private in order to discover the conditions under which minimum force would damage a flask.”
Anti-Misting Kerosene
- p. 79: “The senior American politicians cut their visit short to Edwards [Air Force Base] and the popular press newspapers write AMK off as a failure.”
- p. 80: Television framing: “Because the senses are unprepared for such an impact, it is, in a strange way, quite difficult to see—one does not know what to anticipate and what details to look for.”
- p. 91: “[T]he Federal Aviation A[dministration], NASA, and ICI were all convinced of the effectiveness of AMK before the test, and thought of the test as a demonstration.”
- p. 91: “It might be argued that airplane crashes never go according to plan.”
Is there ever an appropriate test for a crash? - p. 91: “[I]t was appropriate to demonstrate the effectiveness of AMK in a demonstration of a typical crash, rather than an extreme crash.”
- Reflect on this a moment. Why is it more appropriate to demonstrate the effectiveness of AMK for typical crashes?
- Think about car safety features: seat belts and crash test dummies.
- p. 91: There was an “initial fireball” that “would not have happened if the demonstration had gone according to plan.”
- p. 92: “[T]he intended demonstration turned into an experiment.”
- p. 93: “Passengers could have escaped after the initial fireball had died away….ordinary kerosene…would have burned out immediately, giving the passengers no chance.”
p. 93-94: “[T]he test showed in another way that AMK is far less flammable than ordinary jet fuel….there were still 9,000 gallons of unburnt fuel left in and around the plane.” - p. 94: “Anything seen on television is controlled by the lens, the director, the editor and the commentators. It is they who control the conclusions that seem to follow from the ‘direct evidence of the senses.’”
- p. 95: “[A]s soon as the plane crash is seen as an experiment, rather than demonstration, enormous expertise is required to interpret it, and a variety of interpretations is possible.”
- And what happens when the public’s imagination is allowed to wander without guidance?
Firm Conclusions from Incomplete Evidence
- pp. 97-98: Collins & Pinch list lots of alternative interpretations to why AMK might be unsafe.
- p. 98: “[E]xperts, given the most detailed access to the events, disagree with one another, and an outcome to a debate may take years or even decades to come about….Yet…the general public, given only fleeting glances of the experiments, were able to reach firm conclusions instantly.”
- p. 99: “[The public] did not have access to evidence needed to draw conclusions with the proper degree of provisionality.”
Interesting…the public was able to draw conclusions about the experiments. How come?
Consider the way a member of the public–in line in fact–might conclude when seeing a thrill ride stop:
- The Insanity thrill ride at the Las Vegas Stratosphere suspended two passengers April 20, 2005.
- Short Article
- Longer Article
- What might a casual (non-engineer or Stratosphere employee) think about the safety of a ride that suspends itself for 90 min due to wind? Why?
- What might an engineer say about the ride? Why?
Chapter 4: “The World According to Gold: Disputes about the Origins of Oil”
This chapter may initially seem like it belongs in Collins & Pinch’s first volume on science. However, it has much to do with applications of petroleum and the rhetoric of technology. We won’t spend too much time on the technical details or the composition of oil. Instead, we want to focus on how the debate was framed and influenced by a priori assumptions.
Three Things to Take Away from Ch. 4
- Comparing one dispute with another dispute that came out against your opponent is a rhetorical technique, allowing for the praise or shame of the previous dispute to carry over to this new dispute.
In other words, so-and-so or this particular group was wrong before, so they’ll be wrong again. - Even incomplete science can be authoritative. Just because we can’t get too far into the Earth doesn’t mean geology is baseless or invalid. Even if Gold’s theory is correct, the rest of geology still stands.
- Commercial interests often trump scientific curiosity. It costs money to do science. Investors want a return.
We can also conclude something about public opinion when there are scientific or technical disputes. As we’ve read, the public—non-experts—come to conclusions much quicker than the scientists embroiled in the debate. Because the vast majority won’t take the time to sift through the fine details surrounding “frontier science,” they will be more susceptible to conclude based on what seems likely in their worldview.
p. 101: “[T]he underlying tenet that oil is formed by biological decay is the starting point for any exploration of the subject.”
Key Quotations
- p. 102: “Oil is at the roots of our modern industrial civilization….When we talk about oil we are talking no less than the history of the modern world.”
- p. 103: “Since the 1940s nearly all geologists have accepted the biogenic theory [of the origin of oil].”
- p. 105: Statement related to the rhetoric of science—“I wish I could put across what I believe is right as well as Tommy Gold can put across what I believe is wrong!”
- Communicating about science isn’t conveying without persuasion.
- p. 106: “Gold holds that these molecules [hopanoids], rather than being the remnants of ancient terrestrial life, are traces of a living subterranean biosphere which uses petroleum as a chemical energy source.”
- p. 107-108: Plate Tectonics and credibility. Basically, Gold can point out that geologists were wrong about plate tectonics, so they’re wrong about this. It’s not the best argument, but it may affect the credibility of the geologists. Plate tectonics is relatively new, so it would carry more weight than if someone were to try to claim astronomers are wrong today because the field of astronomy once thought the Earth was the center of the universe.
- Remember, science is self-correcting. Ideas change over time. That’s why science is separate from dogma (even though we can point to dogmatic scientists!)
- p. 108: “[G]eologists feel so confident that they have it right,” but also are cautious about rejecting Gold’s idea.
What might the public conclude if geologists don’t dispute Gold with enough force? - p. 109: “Gold claims…hydrocarbons….have since [the Earth formed] slowly seeped up through the mantle in vast quantities to the surface via ‘outgassing.’”
Assumption of Experiment Settling the Debate
Well, as we’ve seen time after time, experiments don’t always settle issues and may cause more doubt—especially when the public, not well versed in the science, draws decisive conclusions.
- p. 111: Gold got Sweden to drill a well. “Unfortunately, for Gold the process of falsifying theories is not as straightforward as some thinkers would have it.”
- p. 113: “The data were ambiguous. The preferred conclusion depended upon which scenario seemed the more plausible.” Of course, one’s assumptions guide conclusions.
- p. 113: Paul Philip claims, “oil had simply migrated down to the granite from sedimentary rocks near the surface.”
- p. 114: The oily magnetite putty was used as evidence by Gold and his critics.
- “Gold interpreted this sludge as indicating the presence of deep-dwelling bacteria that subsist on abiogenic petroleum and reduce iron into magnetite.”
- “For the critics, the biological material….was further evidence that the well had been contaminated from the surface.”
- p. 115: Experimenter’s regress shows up once again. “Experiment alone cannot settle the matter.” How one concludes is based on what one believes.
- p. 114: The biogenic group (geologists against Gold’s theory) may always claim that the presence of micro-organisms proves the well was contaminated.
- p.114: The abiogenic group (Gold and his microbiologist supporters) may claim that these micro-organisms prove “the presence of deep-dwelling bacteria that subsist on abiogenic petroleum.”
- Don’t go too far down this path, but here’s more of a discussion on abiogenic petroleum and Thomas Gold.
- p. 115: “From the point of view of the geologists, however, the matter is also settled; according to them Gold was given a fair chance but he failed to prove his case.”
Lack of Commercial Viability
- p. 116: Investors aren’t likely to invest in “a well which only brings up oil of great scientific import.”
- p. 117: Gold promised a gusher but couldn’t deliver. “[I]t is the lack of commercial interest in what Gold had found in Sweden which is the most damning evidence.”
- p. 118: “The commercial standards of proof can run in a very different direction to scientific standards indicated here.”
- p. 121: “[I]ssues of what counts as commercial credibility have become caught up with the more usual issues of scientific credibility.”
- p. 121: “Gold’s non-biological theory and its assessment are intertwined with the politics and commerce of oil exploration. There is no neutral place where a ‘pure’ assessment of the validity of his claims can be made.”
Next Class
Read Ch. 5 and 6 For next week. Also, don’t forget that your post for this week is due by tomorrow night (10/09) by 11:00 pm. Your MIDTERM EXAM will be in two weeks on Tuesday, 10/20. Unlike Test 1, this exam will only be on one day.