{"id":1155,"date":"2021-12-04T08:43:35","date_gmt":"2021-12-04T13:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca\/extraocadsmhr\/?post_type=chapter&p=1155"},"modified":"2022-02-24T14:06:42","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T19:06:42","slug":"defending-science-how-the-art-of-rhetoric-can-help","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/extraocadsmhr\/chapter\/defending-science-how-the-art-of-rhetoric-can-help\/","title":{"raw":"3c. \"Defending science: How the art of rhetoric can help\" (Short news article)","rendered":"3c. “Defending science: How the art of rhetoric can help” (Short news article)"},"content":{"raw":"

Introduction to the article <\/span>\"Defending science: How the art of rhetoric can help<\/a><\/span>\"<\/h1>\r\nThe bitter division in thought over COVID-19 vaccines has led to a dilemma. How do we deal with issues like vaccine hesitancy to improve global health outcomes?\r\n\r\nSome experts advocate for using the ancient art of rhetoric to advance scientific ends.\r\n\r\nIn her article, \"Defending science: How the art of rhetoric can help,\" author Leah Ceccarelli takes readers through the history of the rhetoric of science.\r\n\r\nIn a world overrun by misinformation and an increasingly cluttered marketplace of ideas, the truth may not necessarily win out. Leveraging the art and science of rhetoric can help us amplify fact-based messages over falsehoods.\r\n\r\n
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Defending science: How the art of rhetoric can help<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\r\nLeah Ceccarelli,\u00a0<\/span>The Conversation<\/em>, April 20, 2017 8:24pm EDT\r\n\r\nScience seems to be under attack in America, so much so that scientists and their supporters are<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>marching in the streets<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\r\n\r\nPresident Donald Trump has publicly called climate change a<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Chinese hoax<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>abetted by greedy scientists. He has linked<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>vaccines to autism<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>despite overwhelming scientific consensus against these claims. Vice President Mike Pence has<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>denied evolutionary science<\/a><\/span>, the very foundation of modern biology. Mick Mulvaney, Trump\u2019s pick for director of the Office of Management and Budget, has questioned the fully established link between Zika virus and microcephaly and wondered whether \u201c<\/span>we really need government-funded research at all<\/a><\/span>.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\nIn response, scientists are taking a stand. They are defending their work against what appears to be a new, more aggressive assault in the so-called \u201c<\/span>Republican war on science<\/a><\/span>,\u201d as the president threatens<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>deep cuts<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>to federal funding of scientific research.<\/span>\r\n\r\nWhen they march for science, they will do well to consider insights from the field of study known as the \u201crhetoric of science.\u201d<\/span>\r\n
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Studying scientists\u2019 communication<\/h2>\r\nBefore dismissing this recommendation as a perverse appeal to slink into the mud or take up the corrupted weapons of the enemy, keep in mind that in academia, \u201crhetoric\u201d does not mean rank falsehoods, or mere words over substance.\r\n\r\nRhetoric is one of the original seven liberal arts. Aristotle defined it as \u201cthe faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion<\/a><\/span>.\u201d Scholars like me who study the rhetoric of science analyze and evaluate the persuasive communication of scientists.\r\n\r\nAlthough it draws from an ancient tradition, rhetoric of science is a relatively young field of study. It was born in the late 20th century, after historian of science Thomas Kuhn introduced the idea that science develops not through the steady accumulation of facts, but in revolutionary moments. With a paradigm change, the heliocentric model of Copernicus replaces the geocentric model of Ptolemy, Darwin\u2019s natural selection overturns natural theology, plate tectonics wins over the theory of a stable Earth.\r\n\r\nKuhn\u2019s call for a study of \u201cthe techniques of persuasive argumentation<\/a><\/span>\u201d within scientific communities that settle conflicts between paradigms introduced the \u201crhetorical turn<\/a><\/span>\u201d in science studies. Rhetoricians enthusiastically took up the call to look at the way that language and culture help to shape knowledge.\r\n\r\nAt first, this kind of scholarship seemed hostile to scientists.\r\n\r\nIn the age of \u201calternative facts<\/a><\/span>,\u201d it is worth remembering that for most of the 20th century, theimage of the scientist as American cultural hero<\/a><\/span>was ascendant.\r\n\r\nScientists have long presented themselves in public as the inheritors of an American pioneering ethos, the very embodiment of the American spirit of exploration, innovation, hard work and success. You see it in influential engineer Vannevar Bush\u2019s\u201cScience: The Endless Frontier<\/a><\/span>,\u201d the report that spurred the formation of the National Science Foundation.Geneticist Francis Collins frequently drew an analogy<\/a><\/span>between the Human Genome Project and Lewis and Clark\u2019s Corps of Discovery. This characterization was so powerful that even George W. Bush, a Republican president widely critiqued for his administration\u2019smisuse of science<\/a><\/span>, found it necessary to praise scientists as modern-day American \u201cpioneers<\/a><\/span>.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn the latter part of the 20th century, when scholars began pointing out that the most effective scientists were those who were also the most effective rhetors, the validity of scientific theories and the institution of science itself seemed to be under attack. Rhetoricians got caught up in the \u201cscience wars<\/a><\/span>\u201d between postmodern deconstructionists and natural scientists. They were viewed with distrust by defenders of science.\r\n

Next phase for rhetoric of science<\/h2>\r\nBut times changed. In the early years of the 21st century, the two cultures of the humanities and the sciences found themselves united against forces that wouldstarve higher education of funding<\/a><\/span>. Many rhetoricians began to see their mission not as taking scientists down a peg or two, but as helping scientists improve their public communication.\r\n\r\nFor example,Celeste Condit<\/a><\/span>draws from the rhetorical tradition to help medical geneticists appreciate the importance of understanding their audience. Scientists should be careful not to underestimate the public, which \u201cknows a fair amount about the basics of heredity<\/a><\/span>.\u201d But neither should they neglect how certain terms affect the public mind. When telling individuals they have a genetic predisposition to cancer, for example, \u201cversion of a gene\u201d is a less scary use of words than \u201cmutation,\u201d which evokes horror movie monsters.\r\n\r\nCondit\u2019s students,Marita Gronnvoll<\/a><\/span>andJamie Landau<\/a><\/span>, explore the problems and potentials of the most frequentmetaphors used by the public to discuss genes<\/a><\/span>, such as ticking time bombs and Russian roulette. They recommend that scientists introduce new, more accurate and less alarming metaphors that call to mind the choreography or orchestration of a gene\/environment interaction.\r\n\r\nRhetoricians have advice for climate scientists too.Ron Von Burg<\/a><\/span>introduces the rhetorical concept oflitotes<\/a><\/span>as a way for scientists to respond to inaccurate but emotive imagery. Litotes is a figure of speech that works as an understatement by stating the negation of its opposite; imagine a friend hinting that an invitation to visit would \u201cnot be unwelcome.\u201d\r\n\r\nVon Burgpoints to scientists<\/a><\/span>who used this strategy effectively when responding to critiques of climate disaster movie\u201cThe Day After Tomorrow<\/a><\/span>.\u201d Climate skeptics denounced the blockbuster as hyperbolic. Climate scientists agreed that its story line about instant climatic shift was absurd. But they also argued that the overall message that climate change requires our attention was \u201cnot untrue.\u201d \u201cThe film is not scientifically invalid\u201d insofar as the events it depicts \u2013 melting ice sheets, powerful hurricanes \u2013 are likely to occur, but just over a longer time frame.\r\n\r\nEthos<\/a><\/span>, or the speaker\u2019s development of a trustworthy character, is another important concept that rhetoricians share with scientists engaged in public debates.Jean Goodwin<\/a><\/span>has studied how scientists can reach out to skeptical listeners with appeals that signal their vulnerability rather than their superiority. Observing climate scientists speaking to skeptical audiences, she has found that one mustgive trust<\/a><\/span>in order to receive it in return.\r\n
\r\n\r\nSome of my own research focuses on how to counter amanufactroversy<\/a>: when the public has been told there\u2019s a dispute within the scientific community when there is actually a wide consensus. In these cases, those who would manipulate the public set argumentative traps. One way for scientists to avoid these traps is to point to the history of scientific debate that resulted in the consensus of experts. Sharing such rhetorical strategies is my way of helping climate scientists, as well as experts responding to those who deny the safety of vaccines, or the link between a virus and a disease.\r\n\r\nWhen scientists gather to march for science, I want them to know about this body of research. In addition to carrying signs, they can take up the toolbox of effective communication known as the rhetorical tradition. Rhetoricians will be marching by their side, allies in the battle to protect science from politically motivated attacks on one of the greatest treasures of the nation.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n
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Quiz<\/h2>\r\nQuiz on Defending science: How the art of rhetoric can help<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\r\n\r\n[h5p id=\"92\"]\r\n\r\n[h5p id=\"93\"]\r\n\r\n[h5p id=\"94\"]\r\n\r\n[h5p id=\"95\"]\r\n\r\n
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