The Common Sense Rhetorics of Anti-Science: Testimonies from Creationists and Anti- Environmentalists
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THE COMMON SENSE RHETORICS OF ANTI-SCIENCE: TESTIMONIES FROM CREATIONISTS AND ANTI- ENVIRONMENTALISTS By CHRISTINE HARRELL SEIFERT Bachelor of Science North Dakota State University Fargo, North Dakota 1997 Master of Arts North Dakota State University Fargo, North Dakota 2000 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May, 2005 THE COMMON SENSE RHETORICS OF ANTI-SCIENCE: TESTIMONIES OF CREATIONISTS AND ANTI- ENVIRONMENTALISTS Dissertation Approved: Dr. Richard Batteiger Dissertation Adviser Dr. Carol Moder Dr. Melissa Ianetta Dr. Margaret Ewing Dr. A. Gordon Emslie Dean of the Graduate College ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project has demonstrated to me the truly collaborative nature of writing; I owe much gratitude to those who helped me create this dissertation. First, I thank Drs. Carol Moder and Margaret Ewing for their work on my committee and their helpful comments. Thanks to Dr. Melissa Ianetta for her insightful questions, which helped me to think more critically about my methods of analysis. I also owe thanks to Dr. Denise Tillery who assisted in the inception of my research questions. In addition, I’d like to thank her for her willingness to read drafts, answer questions, and give encouragement whenever I needed it. My early discussions with her about science and rhetoric provided the basis for the entire project. Thanks also go to Dr. Shelley Reid who provided last- minute moral support. I owe special thanks to Dr. Richard Batteiger who valiantly stepped in as dissertation advisor more than halfway through the project. His close reading of my many drafts and his insightful commentary were indispensable to me. His encouragement and guidance have been invaluable throughout the entire process. His unwavering confidence in me pushed me to keep writing even when I wanted to quit. I must also thank those friends who have spent more than two years listening to me talk about this project. Dr. Shelley Thomas has been an invaluable source of information. Thanks also go to Dr. Mischelle Anthony, Stacey Winters, and Julia Boyd iii for their friendship and encouragement. My parents, Bill and Carol Hoverson, deserve special recognition for their understanding and emotional support. Finally, I would like to thank my biggest supporter, Robert Seifert, who has been my closest friend and most reliable inspiration. Without him, I never would have finished. Thanks for putting up with me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction...................................................................................................... 1 Science and Anti-Science ............................................................................................... 4 Popular Science............................................................................................................. 11 The Anti-Intellectual Movement................................................................................... 17 Chapter 2: Methods........................................................................................................... 22 Text Selection ............................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 3: The Creationist Debate................................................................................... 34 The Creationist Ideology............................................................................................... 34 A History of Creationism.............................................................................................. 41 Chapter 4: A Neo-Aristotelian Analysis of Creationist Rhetoric ..................................... 56 Invention and Stasis Theory.......................................................................................... 57 Arrangement ................................................................................................................. 63 Style and the Critique of Mainstream Science.............................................................. 78 Chapter 5: Creationist Writing as Conversion Rhetoric ................................................... 93 The Story of Creationists .............................................................................................. 94 Chapter 6: The Anti-Environmentalist Movement ........................................................ 117 The Anti-Global Warming Perspective on Environmentalism and Science............... 121 The Apocalyptic Environmentalist Tradition ............................................................. 128 Chapter 7: A Neo-Aristotelian Analysis of Anti-Environmental Writing...................... 141 Invention and Stasis Theory........................................................................................ 141 Arrangement ............................................................................................................... 148 Style and the Critique of Mainstream Science............................................................ 161 Chapter 8: Anti-environmental Writing as Conversion Rhetoric ................................... 170 The Story of Anti-Environmentalism ......................................................................... 173 v Chapter 9: Understanding the Fantasy-Types of Anti-Movements............................... 191 Chapter 10: Conclusion ................................................................................................. 206 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 209 vi TABLE OF TABLES Table 1 ............................................................................................................................ 196 vii Chapter 1: Introduction …Science’s potential as an instrument for identifying the cultural constraints upon it cannot be fully realized until scientists give up the twin myths of objectivity and inexorable march toward truth. One must, indeed, locate the beam in one’s own eye before interpreting correctly the pervasive motes in everybody else’s (55). Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man It will be argued here that in fact only the scientific method (and only when correctly applied) can generate truth. Conversely, apart from the obvious, the only truth possible is by definition scientific. Theo Theocharis, “What Is ‘Episteme?’ The Meaning of ‘Science’ and ‘Truth’” Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience (6). Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World I first became interested in the interplay between science and rhetoric while attending a university biochemistry department picnic as a guest. Nervous about my ability to communicate intelligently with a group of people who could freely and enthusiastically chit-chat about metabolic pathways, I sought out a seat with the least intimidating of the bunch: a friendly gentleman with a white beard and checkered suit. His stuffy suit was comically out of place as he perched at the end of a rusting metal picnic bench eating a burned hot dog. After making small-talk about my training in rhetoric, he promptly informed me, “I’ve never known much about persuasion and argument. I just work in my lab and then write up my results. Just the facts.” He shrugged happily, convinced that we weren’t even on the same plane of existence. “But 1 surely you must believe that argument exists in the field of science?” I asked. “Oh, sure,” he told me, “Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould—the guys who publish books for nonscientists—they make some interesting arguments. But they still present facts,” he hastily added. He continued on, “Then you have the creationists—they use rhetoric. That’s not science.” He shook his head disgustedly and continued eating his hot dog, content that he’d definitively demarcated the lines that separate science and rhetoric. It was clear to me that he had established a hierarchy: mainstream science— specifically, lab science—is at the top because those scientists present facts. Popular science, if written by trained scientists, comes next because it simplifies complicated facts that scientists discover and present. Wrong-headed science, like creationism, doesn’t even make the hierarchy—it languishes away in the world of rhetoric. The suggestion is that rhetoric is useful when one wants to convince others of false information. The incident left me with questions about how other mainstream scientists— university professors and other professional scientists—perceive their work and their writing. The amiable man I spoke with has a PhD in chemistry from Harvard, has worked in his field for over thirty years, and has an impressive list of reputable publications to his name, yet he sees himself as merely a reporter of facts. I suspect that many other scientists see themselves in the same light: observers of phenomenon who use language to analyze and describe data, but certainly not as skillful rhetoricians who follow a very specific and rigid rhetorical tradition as they write. Questions about how scientists view their writing led me to consider how popular science writers—those who write for lay audiences—see themselves. As reporters? 2 Purveyors of truth? Or as rhetoricians?