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Draws on descriptions of the uranium development process in Valerie Kuletz's The Tainted Desert (1998) to examine information compiled by survivors, activists, & others harmed by the nuclear industry that reveals tendencies to deny credibility & exclude data. Focus is on the impact of uranium development on indigenous people. Differences between understandings of nature by local/indigenous groups & government/scientific groups are explored to argue that the key difference is between those who hold an intersubjective view of nature, & those who "objectify" nature to epistemologically separate subject & object, nature & culture. A historical framework is provided for understanding how science has used a "mechanism of exclusion" to promote "progress" & unrestrained development. The local & indigenous people of the US Southwest who see Yucca Mountain, the Nevada Test Site, & NM's Grants Uranium Belt as nature that exists beyond being an object of scientific experimentation have been regularly excluded from the scientific discourse. The need to inject environmental & social justice into scientific constructions of nature is discussed. 17 References. J. Lindroth