Power Differential in Science

Reading Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyle helped me to look at catastrophic nuclear accidents that have happened in the world so far in a pretty much different light. When I think of and hear about a nuclear accident, I always think about it in terms of how many people have been or can be possibly affected by radioactive materials, how many people have died, or how many people are going to die. Maybe it was because it never concerned me directly and I was ignorant of those events. So I always felt some distance from it and I was confined to a narrow-minded knowledge.

So in this sense how the author talks about power differential and a hierarchy of knowledge and power was really interesting and eye-opening to me. In order to get benefits from the center, the people who have a high dose of radiation had to do a series of tests and in the process many people were in disadvantageous positions due to their ignorance. So in order to use science for his own benefit, Nimenko had to familiarize himself with science languages and symptoms, etc.

Again, this made me think about what we had discussed in class before; science has been something that is supposed to promote the general well-being of the public regardless of their social and political positions, but still people in the lower positions don’t get as much benefit as people high up in the social status ladder, even when it’s not intended. Is this something that we can solely attribute to the complex language of science? Or do a lot of people actually take advantage of science for their own sake? In order science to be something that can be available and approachable to everyone, what should be done first? I don't know the answers, but Life Exposed certainly made me to ponder upon those questions.