Toms River: "Scientific Uncertainty"

The Toms River reading enhanced my understanding of “scientific uncertainty” because even though the people knew there was something going on, the scientist could not pinpoint exactly what was going on. There was a lot of “scientific uncertainty” because the data was not sufficient to signal what potentially could have caused people to be affected with cancer. The data was not conclusive, but it did give some indication on what could have caused cancer for those kids. Science did not provide enough clarity for the people because they were not able to obtain enough evidence to figure out what was happening and give people closure. In the reading we can the scientist struggled to interpret the data they had collected in order to make significant conclusions, their intervals were very large which negatively impacted the certainty of their conclusions. 

Reid Frazier in his article, “State investigating potential cancer cluster in western Pa.; some residents fear an environmental cause,” looks into a potential cancer cluster in the Washington County School district. There have been many people in the area that are concerned with the four cases of Ewing sarcoma that have occurred in the past decade. The experts on this say that this is a random event, but the citizens of the county are concerned that it is due to the former radium and uranium plant which was located in Cannonsburg. They believe that the buried waste could have contaminated the water wells or gas wells in the area. But the scientists believe that this is just a random event and that it is not environmentally related.

Overall, in these two pieces of writing you can see that “scientific uncertainty” is occurring. In both these situations the citizens feel that there is something going on in their neighborhood or county but they do not know what it is causing it. Science is not bringing them any answers either. There is not enough data or information to make a certain ruling or bring an answer to their concerns. Therefore showing that science is never certain, it can give answers to some things but its still not for sure, it is still subject to chance. In other cases not even science can answer concerns until a later time.

Citation

Frazier, Reid. “State Investigating Potential Cancer Cluster in Western Pa.; Some Residents Fear an Environmental Cause.” WHYY, WHYY, 26 Mar. 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/state-investigating-potential-cancer-cluster-in-washington-county-some-residents-fear-an-environmental-cause/.