Role of the expert at Three Mile Island

In the climate of crisis at Three Mile Island, the problems of technical uncertainty and conflicting data that confront experts in controversial areas of science and technology were profound. The accident took place at a time when experts were engaged in intensive debate about the long-term effects of low-level radiation. It followed in the wake of numerous controversies about power-plant siting and intractable problems of nuclear-waste disposal. It occurred when the antinuclear movement was actively and successfully organizing on a national scale. And, strangely, it happened only several weeks after the release of a very popular film, The China Syndrome, which protrayed an accident that resembled the event at Three Mile Island in superficial ways