Devra Davis, "Presumed Innocent "

Questions for Making Connections within the Reading:

1. Davis presents her reader with a wide array of evidence regarding environmental toxins. After you have generated a catalogue of the evidence she cites, identify the evidence that you found to be the most compelling. Given Davis’s argument, is it possible to say that her evidence is convincing?

2. Davis asks questions throughout “Presumed Innocent,”—more than a dozen appear in the first section alone. As you reread the piece, highlight the questions she poses, paying attention to when and where the questions arise. Do you detect a pattern? Are the questions all of the same kind? Versions of the same question? Do they tell us anything about Davis’ method?

3. Given Davis’ analysis of how major corporations do business, do you regard her solution as adequate and likely to succeed? Obviously, Davis is aware that South African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions were not concerned with scientific research on cancer, but with apartheid. Why, then, does she offer these commissions as an appropriate model for transforming research on cancer?

Questions for Writing:  

1. “Cancer research is no different from any other form of knowing. It relies on customs and practices.” With this statement, Davis moves scientific research into the realm of all of social ways of knowing, stressing in the process that such research is necessarily influenced by who is funding the project, who carries it out, when it is done, and who stands to lose the most by negative results. Is this the same as saying that, in the final analysis, scientific research is subjective? Inescapably biased? What is the status of Truth in Davis’ analysis?

2. Early in “Presumed Innocent,” Davis declares that, “We’ve got several looming health problems that require fundamentally different solutions than the technologies that gave rise to them.”  One could argue, though, that new technologies are also responsible for making us aware of health problems that would otherwise go undetected. Davis doesn’t, however, look to technology to solve the problems she has identified. Where does she look? In what sense are the solutions she proposes “fundamentally different”?

Questions for Making Connections Between Readings:  

1. Edward Tenner assures us, in spite of all the complications, that progress “comes in by the back door.” In making this claim, he seems to believe that a self-correcting process will usually operate, with “intensity” followed by “disaster,” which produces “precaution” and finally “vigilance.” Is this argument confirmed, extended, complicated, or refuted by Davis’ description of current research on cancer? Does Davis’ argument that corporate concerns influence this research show that technology’s self-correcting tendencies have been derailed in this instance? Are financial considerations necessarily at odds with the development of scientific knowledge?

2.  “Those of us who indict past failures have a duty to develop new solutions.” Davis marks herself throughout “Presumed Innocent” as someone keenly concerned about the future—she worries about the “ecological footprint” left by her generation and the world that her grandchildren will inherit. Those grandchildren, presumably, are part of what Jean Twenge terms “Generation Me.” Is it possible for a generation raised on the self-esteem curriculum to comprehend the problems Davis has described? To feel a sense of “duty to develop new solutions” to current problems? To think that technology is not the solution to every problem? What role can Generation Me—a generation raised on cell phones and Aspartame—play in responding to the dangers Davis sees as surrounding us all?