Article
ID: CBB073054408

Taking a Stand: Exploring the Role of the Scientists prior to the First Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, 1957 (2013)

unapi
Pugwash Conferences Protest movements Political activists and activism Nuclear industry Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons 20th century, late Canada Nova Scotia Rotblat, Joseph Russell, Bertrand Arthur William

In 1957, a small group of world-renown scientists gathered in Pugwash, Nova Scotia to discuss the growing threat of nuclear arms. Funded by industrialist Cyrus Eaton and spearheaded by philosopher Bertrand Russell and physicist Joseph Rotblat, this 1957 meeting founded an organization of scientists that believed they had a duty to speak out against escalating nuclear testing and what they saw as the irresponsible use of science. However, not every scientist felt that it was appropriate to take a public and political stand. This paper gives a brief history of the Pugwash movement and how its first meeting came to be held in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. The perspectives of involved scientists are examined, contrasting the attitudes of participants in the conference with the attitudes of scientists who declined a public role. This paper explores how scientists perceived their own responsibility to act, examining the willingness to use their cultural identity as scientists to lobby for a particular political position.

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Authors & Contributors
Tompkins, Andrew S.
Francis, John
Mitchell, Mary X.
Dunlap, Christopher Thomas
Grise, Michelle Claire
Sarah E. Robey
Journals
Social History of Medicine
Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
Journal of the History of Biology
Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Publishers
Oxford University Press
Springer Nature
University of California Press
University of Alabama Press
The MIT Press
Princeton University Press
Concepts
Political activists and activism
Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons
Protest movements
Nuclear industry
Nuclear power stations
Biographies
People
Russell, Bertrand Arthur William
Rotblat, Joseph
Francis, John
Sears, Paul Bigelow
Commoner, Barry
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
Marshall Islands
Warsaw (Poland)
West Germany
Nova Scotia
Institutions
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Partial Test Ban Treaty; Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963)
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968)
United States. Atomic Energy Commission
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