Social Responsibility of Scientists and STS

Abstract

　 This paper deals with Triple Disaster in 2011 at Japan from the perspectives of social responsibility of scientists as well as responsibility of STS researchers. First, the meaning of “unexpected” in several official reports of Fukushima nuclear accident are reviewed and politics of “beyond assumption” are examined. Second; this paper focus on the gap between the information that citizen wanted to know and the information professionals wanted to provide. Citizen who lived in Fukushima wanted to know impartial, non-partisan, broad information; however, professionals wanted to provide decisive action guidelines and limited, absolute information. These gaps raise questions on the responsibility of scientists. Which behavior is responsible on the part of scientists: to disclose only unique knowledge decisive enough for action guidelines or to disclose a variety of knowledge? Third, the discussion on “techno-orientalism” is examined and finally, examples are shown on how the STS perspective can provide the platforms for the discussion on health effects by radio-activities. At the same time, the responsibility of STS researchers and the distance between the target and STS researchers are discussed.