Gerald E. Markle

Handbook of Science and Technology Studies

Keywords: STS ; science and government Reference Record created on 2005-06-20, modified on 2016-08-08

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Cigarette Smoking as Deviant Behavior

This article focuses on the long-standing, but recently intensified controversy over cigarette smoking. In the late 1960s and the 1970s a variety of laws and regulations were implemented to regulate smoking and the smoker. Initially these strictures were what Gusfield terms assimilative, but more recently they have become coercive. In 1978, for example, a California referendum to ban smoking in most public places was narrowly defeated. Many view this controversy using a medical model or emphasizing the conflicting rights of smokers and nonsmokers. We analyze it as a status battle between pro and antismoking vested interests. Using data from a variety of primary and secondary sources such as government statistics, corporate reports, state codes, marketing reports and public opinion polls, we focus on the political, economic and organizational forces which have militated for or against changes. At stake is the symbolic definition of a behavior as socially approved or illegitimate and the consequent denigration of the losers. We predict more and increasingly militant confrontations between pro and antismoking forces, both at the individual and collective level.

Nicotine and Norms: The Re-Emergence of a Deviant Behavior

This study investigates historical and on-going changes in the social control of cigarette smoking and emphasizes the moral, political, organizational, and economic forces which have influenced changes in smoking behavior. Social controls have ranged from a complete ban on cigarette smoking in 14 states at the turn of the century, to the post World War II period when smoking was an established part of the American scene, to the various federal and administrative regulations of today. Two measures of per capita consumption of cigarettes over the past decade have fluctuated widely in accordance with the history of that period. Although health considerations have influenced consumption patterns, data collected by the Federal Government show that moral considerations are probably more important, and that today many cigarette smokers label themselves as deviant. The future bodes greater control over the sale, advertising, and consumption of cigarettes, although prohibition of adult smoking is unlikely.

The Estrogen Replacement Controversy in the USA and UK: Different Answers to the Same Question?

Estrogen Replacement Therapy (ERT) is a widely prescribed but controversial treatment for menopausal and postmenopausal symptoms. Our research shows that the dispute over menopausal estrogens has developed quite differently in the United States and Great Britain. For each country we examine claims made by physicians, feminists and consumers, regulatory bodies, and the pharmaceutical industry, as well as the claims of researchers. For each group the United States and British position on ERT is opposite, one country favouring the therapy, the other opposing its use. Yet within each country ERT stances are not consistent: feminists oppose physician practices, and physician practice is in opposition to research conclusions. Our comparative design allows us to conclude that for each country the positions of various interests, and their systematic opposition to one another, are the outcome of political, ideological and economic relations.

Sex ratio at birth: Values, variance, and some determinants

This paper examines the values, variance and some possible determinants of sex ratios for the first child and for all children in expected and desired families. For adults in Tallahassee, Florida, it was found that a large majority of respondents within sixty demographic categories chose males for their first child. Of those who actually had girls for their first child, a plurality would, nevertheless, prefer a first boy in their desired family. It was hypothesized and demonstrated that sex-role ideologies were a strong predictor of variance in first-child sex preferences. Sex ratios for all children in expected and desired families were 116 and 113, respectively. If people could choose the sex of their future children, these data suggest that several population parameters might be significantly altered; a preliminary model is outlined which might project some of these changes.

Coffee Drinking: An Emerging Social Problem?

Is coffee bad for your health? This question has been at the center of a growing controversy in the United States which threatens to transform the widespread use of coffee into a social problem. Though coffee has been suspect for some 300 years, public attention since 1970 has been focused on medical research which suggests that the caffeine in coffee may cause cancer, birth defects, and heart disease. This paper looks at the history of the controversy, reviews the research, both pro and con, and describes the groups which have taken sides over the issue. We conclude that there are parallels between the way the controversy over coffee has developed and the early stages of the definition of cigarette smoking as a social problem.

Notes from the cancer underground: health attitudes and practices of participants in the laetrile movement.

In an earlier paper in this journal we presented data on the social characteristics of participants in the Laetrile movement [1]. In this note we present data on the health attitudes and practices of these people. A description of the symposium at which the data were collected and details of the methodological procedures are contained in the earlier paper. It should be emphasized that the data should be viewed as exploratory. Completed questionnaires were obtained from 252 people. Virtually all were white, most were female (60%), middle-aged (the mean age was 44 years), highly educated (61% had some college experience and 15% had done post-graduate work), and rural or from small towns (65%). A number of the items on health attitudes and practices were taken from the National Health Survey, thus allowing comparisons with national norms.

The Instrumental Rationality of Extermination

Its June 20, 1995. Our senses sated with nouvelle cuisine and fine art, we drive into New Mexico from Santa Fe to the Bandelier State Park cliff dwellings. The Anasazi Indian story has been lost to history: even their name is not their own; it means “ancient enemy” in Navaho. The scenery, echoing the songs of ghosts, is spectacular and pristine. Not quite, for the road butts against the Los Alamos Laboratories, a different history indeed. We drive to Los Alamos and visit its sterile museum, listening to official histories. Then we stop at the Los Alamos Ranch School for boys. Hereabouts dwells the ghost of Trinity and Oppenheimer, nearer to us in history, tragic as well, certainly more ironic, than the Anasazi.

Minutes to Midnight: Nuclear Weapons Protest in America.

The Rise and Fall of the Freeze Social Problems in Postindustrial Society Atomic Scientists Movement and the Bulletin Ban the Bomb The Freeze Origins, Growth and Decline The Freeze Strategy, Tactics and Social Control Beyond the Freeze

Cigarettes: The Battle over Smoking.

What do you do to start reading cigarettes the battle over smoking? Searching the book that you love to read first or find an interesting book that will make you want to read? Everybody has difference with their reason of reading a book. Actuary, reading habit must be from earlier. Many people may be love to read, but not a book. Its not fault. Someone will be bored to open the thick book with small words to read. In more, this is the real condition. So do happen probably with this cigarettes the battle over smoking.