I've always enjoyed natural science, especially paleo, bio and marine...but it's been a long, long time since I've been in a science class and aside from online news articles, I haven't read anything remotely scientific in an even longer time. So, this book, week after week, has been shifted to the bottom of my pile; I won't make any claims to be above that kind of avoidance at this place in this game.
However, today during my office hours I read an article by Richard Rorty called "Science as Solidarity." Rorty takes science's 'holier-than-thou' place in our world to task and argues (Kuhn has his back) that our frantic search for 'truth' in everything is because as a culture, we're becoming more secular and we're scared of losing the community that religion creates. Wait, did this guy just link science, rhetoric and religion in 10 pages? I had to read more...so, tonight's task has been combing through this ugly book from the bottom of my pile.
I stand not only impressed, but incredibly learned. The cover is truly one of the worst I've ever seen, but Harris has gathered the seminal (landmark) essays written in the last 30 years or so that one should read to know about the field (field?!) of rhetoric of science. What is rhetoric of science? Why, it's the study of how scientists use rhetoric, silly! (news to me...)
Here's what you should know: Kuhn is the guy who's responsible for getting people talking about this stuff. He started in the late 60s and while he passed in the early 90s, his mark was left on the interdisciplinary interests of both communities forever. He believed there to be two types of scientific discovery: data (as in, case studies, findings, etc) and persuasion. He broke down the walls that Aristotle built: 'the wall of certainty' and 'the wall of expertise', opening up the scientific floor for analysis and discussion that focused no longer only on 'truths' and/or 'stability'. Science is NOT linear.
Rorty,the guy whose article started all of this for me, was responsible for the "rhetorical turn" (xvi); because of his work, philosophers started looking into scientific inquiry, which as a result, brought the scientist down a notch from the pedestal we'd put him on as a type of 'priest' in our culture. Rorty's "turn" is responsible for three major developments: Rhetoric of Inquiry (a Symposium was held in Iowa in the 70s which started the wave of interdisciplinary interest in rhet/sci), Argument Fields (thanks to Toulmin's argument model which stated there are field-specific as well as universal argument types) and SSK or Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (wherein sociologists picked up rhet/sci and started to collaborate). Sociologists are responsible for the current truism: "rhetoric is everywhere in science" (xxv).
A few other gems: to know what rhetoric is, one has allegiance to it; all fields use rhetoric slightly differently (and that's partly the point) (xxvii); tool-sets from Aristotle are both used almost wholesale and also totally rejected - depends on the person applying rhetoric to science.
The authors whose articles are in this collection are as follows, under the following sections:
(Giants in Science)
Campbell - rhetoric IS science, nothing but science; looks at Darwin's "accommodation" of rhetoric that made Origins popular among audiences
Gross - rhetoric is everything; rhetoric is the only reason Newton was successful
Halloran - ethos makes a scientist who they are
(Conflict in Science)
Fahnestock - Kuhn is invoked by both sides (those opposing rhetoric's place in science and those supporting/practicing it)
Lyne and Howe - 2 themes: arguments change from audience to audience and invocation of Kuhn as 'Patron Saint' of rhet/sci embattled scientists
Prelli - the quest for authority within the public is a way all scientists use rhetoric (even when they deny it)
(Public Science)
Weaver - science grew and rhetoric shrank (as fields) because people stopped culturally trusting emotions, a la Aristotle
Waddell - emotion CAN be trusted (take that, Aristotle!)
Reeve - emotion can twist science (for example, greedy scientists who want to get their name in the lights regardless of how they have to go about it) BUT...it's still an invaluable part of human decision-making and thus, we can't remove it from the scientific approach
(Writing in Science)
Bazerman - studied one genre of science writing, the Experimental Report, to show that science writing is rhetorical; was the first scholar to bring writing into the rhet/sci discussion
Myers - wrote the book Writing Biology which Harris believes is the best book written on the subject of science writing; looks at the peer review process of publication to explore negotiation and knowledge as rhetorical actions within the science community
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