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Communicating Popular Science This Page Intentionally Left Blank Communicating Popular Science from Deficit to Democracy Communicating Popular Science This page intentionally left blank Communicating Popular Science From Deficit to Democracy Sarah Tinker Perrault University of California, Davis, USA © Sarah Tinker Perrault 2013 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-01757-4 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-43713-9 ISBN 978-1-137-01758-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137017581 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India. Contents List of Figures ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xix List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xxi Part I Foundations 1 Popular Science Writing: Problems and Potential 3 Social Contracts 6 Why Popular Science Writing Matters 7 How Rhetoric of Science Can Help Improve Popular Science Writing 9 Models of Science Popularization 11 2 Theoretical and Analytical Framework 18 Philosophical Foundation: Traditional–Idealism Versus Realist–Skepticism 18 Realist–Skepticism and Science Communication 24 Theoretical Lens: Rhetorical Genre Theory 26 Analytical Framework: The Rhetorical Situation 27 Corpus Selection 31 Conclusion 36 3 A Brief History of Science Popularization 37 Early Science: 1600s 37 Enlightenment Science: 1700s and Early 1800s 39 Professionalizing Science: Mid- and Late-1800s 40 Big Science, Scientism, and the Traditional Social Contract 42 Post-Academic Science and the Need for a New Social Contract 44 Conclusion 46 4 Practitioner Perspectives on their Craft 48 Practitioner Roles 49 Role #1: Boosters 50 Role #2: Translators 56 v vi Contents Role #3: Critics 58 Conclusion 60 Part II Applications 5 Boundary Work: Presenting Science in Context 65 Boundary Work and the PAST–CUSP Continuum 66 Boundary Work Described in Practitioner Texts 68 Boundary Work in Popular Science Texts 72 Boundary Work in Kolbert’s ‘The Sixth Extinction?’ 77 Conclusion: Boundary Work and a New Social Contract 80 6 Expertise: Broadening the Scope of Participation 82 Expertise and the PAST–CUSP Continuum 82 Expertise Described in Practitioner Texts 84 Expertise in Popular Science Texts 87 Expertise in Corson’s ‘Stalking the American Lobster’ 91 Conclusion: Expertise and a New Social Contract 93 7 Ethos: Establishing Relationships with Readers 96 Ethos and the PAST–CUSP Continuum 96 Ethos in Popular Science Texts 102 Ethos in Hirsh’s ‘Signs of Life’ 108 Conclusion: Ethos and a New Social Contract 111 8 Rhetorical Orientations: Inviting Reader Engagement 113 Rhetorical Orientations and the PAST–CUSP Continuum 113 Rhetorical Orientations Described in Practitioner Texts 120 Forensic Orientations in Popular Science Texts 123 Epideictic Orientations in Popular Science Texts 128 Deliberative Orientations in Popular Science Texts 132 Rhetorical Orientations in Nijhuis’ ‘Taking Wilderness in Hand’ 135 Conclusion: Rhetorical Orientations and a New Social Contract 138 9 Technocracy and Democracy: Talking about Risk 140 Risk and the PAST–CUSP Continuum 140 How Practitioners Talk About Risk 147 Risk in Popular Science Texts 151 Risk in Trivedi’s ‘The Wipeout Gene’ 155 Conclusion 158 Contents vii Part III Final Words 10 Conclusion: Toward a New Social Contract 163 The Need for CUSP and the Role of Popular Science Writing 163 Engaging Larger Conversations 168 Escape From the Science–Society Dualism 169 Notes 171 References 179 Index 193 This page intentionally left blank List of Figures 1.1 Science sends knowledge to civil society 12 1.2 Science and civil society exchange ideas 14 1.3 Science is an interactive part of civil society 16 2.1 The rhetorical situation 28 2.2 The rhetorical situation with relationships labeled 28 2.3 The PAST model rhetorical situation 30 2.4 The CUSP model rhetorical situation 31 8.1 Orientations, stases, and a mouse in my house 116 8.2 Orientations, stases, and what to do about the mouse 117 ix This page intentionally left blank Preface I wrote this book because I wanted to understand how popular science writing works so I could help it do a better job of promoting democratic discussions about science-related issues. I didn’t start with that goal. When I began the research that resulted in this book, I was operating under two false assumptions. First, I believed that the job of popular science writing was, and should be, to inform nonscientists about sci- ence. Second, I believed that this job mattered because nonscientists didn’t really understand science and therefore could not make good judgments about it. My goal was to understand popular science writing so I could help it do a better job of promoting science. In retrospect and given my own background, I don’t know what I was thinking. My experience with democracy and science began in 1977 when I was one of 2400 people who gathered to protest the site of the proposed Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire, and I remained active in the anti-Seabrook movement until I moved away from the East Coast almost ten years later. When I attended that first protest, at the age of 8, I knew little about what nuclear power was; by the time I moved away at 17, I was well versed in the arguments pro and con, and even more well versed in how accusations of scientific igno- rance can be used to dismiss opposition to technoscientific projects. Although I can’t recount specific anecdotes after so many years, philoso- pher of science Don Ihde offers one that parallels the kinds of exchanges I recall happening, for example at Nuclear Regulatory Commission hear- ings where citizen questions (including from my mother) were mocked and dismissed. In ‘Why Not Science Critics?’, Ihde recounts an exchange he had with a physicist during a public panel about the safety of the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant on Long Island, New York. The talk by the physicist, Max Dresden, ‘turned out to be a defense of expertise and a diatribe against even allowing public discussion of expert conclusions’ (p. 132). Among other things, Dresden opined that ‘it was “irrational” to oppose—out of ignorance—the opening of the Shoreham plant’. Ihde engaged in a discussion with Dresden, who went so far as to ‘reiterate in even stronger terms his defense of expertise—he now claimed that no one should be allowed to vote on issues of such technical complexity’. At that point, Ihde asked if the debate about the nuclear power plant was scientific or political. When Dresden admitted that it was political, xi xii Preface Ihde asked him ‘if he were expert at politics’ and, when Dresden said no, pointed out that, ‘according to [Dresden’s] expertise argument’ Dresden himself was not qualified to make pronouncements about the power plant. Dresden’s response was to suggest, the next day in the faculty club, that the entire philosophy department be ‘dismantled given its “antisci- entific” tendencies’ (p. 132). What makes this exclusion of public concerns even more interesting is that public oversight of technoscientific developments is heralded as one of democracy’s strengths, even as particular instances of public concern are dismissed because they are not part of the technoscien- tific paradigm they question. Physicist and philosopher Jerry Ravetz summed up this paradox nicely: ‘Scientists take credit for penicillin, but Society takes the blame for the Bomb’ (p. 46). As I read more, I began to see this paradox at play in a number of science-related controversies where the public is assigned the role of monitoring science, but, at the same time, science has the ultimate authority to decide which judg- ments about scientific issues are sound. The situation, as I was coming to understand it, was all rather dis- heartening. However, at the same time, the more I read in Science and Technology Studies (STS)—in rhetoric of science, and also in history of science, philosophy of science, the sociology of scientific knowledge, and other related areas—the more I started to see the potential in newer conceptualizations of science not as a realm apart from everyday life but as socially embedded, as one of many approaches to making knowledge about the world and making meaning about that knowledge. Looking at science communication from that point of view shows that the prob- lem is not the reader, but the belief that popular science writing should uncritically promote science.
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