The Atom and the Fault: Experts, Earthquakes, and Nuclear Power

The review titled "Taking turns others don't" is for another book, titled "Getting Sued and Other Tales of the Engineering Life" by Richard L. Meehan MIT Press, 1975

Meehan's book is nine chapters, nine stories beginningwith his freshman year at MIT in 1957. He goes in thearmy, he goes around the world to Thailand, he goesdown the world to Chile. I could not stop followinghim. He really has no extraordinary adventures; whatmakes the book extraordinary is his power of observingand reflecting on himself and what happens around him.He has a special appeal as a subject since he seems tooccasionally go out of control but never out of focus.Maybe his years investigating the stability of land tohold dams and support buildings have benefited his hugeliterary talents. There is something very special aboutthese stories. The book has a shocking ending where heseems to promise the reader that he is finishinghimself off in a lucrative dreariness in Palo Alto, butthen if you remember the book's beginning you see thathe thrives by taking turns others don't. --Steve Baer Coevolution Quarterly

This is a detailed, well presented, superbly argued and absolutely fascinating account of one episode in the continuing interaction between science, technology, the law and the public interest. It once and for all puts to rest the idea that science uses a well defined and unambiguous method and speaks with a single voice. It makes it clear that experts participating in and testifying before a public forum are often outside their domain of expertise and therefore speak as laypersons, not as experts. It shows the need for public standards regulating the use of expert knowledge. Containing vivid portraits of the individuals participating in the debate, it shows how even very abstract considerations are influenced by the character and the temperament of those producing them. Required reading for historians of science and technology, philosophers of science, regulatory commissions and the members of citizens' boards dealing with scientific and technological matters. --Paul Feyerabend University of California and Federal Institute of Technology