Beyond Logos

Beyond Logos: An Overview of the Rhetoric of Science

Kathy Kieva ENL 501 - Rhetorical Theory Research Paper Jerrold Blitefield 10/30/08

Science has been around almost a long as humans have, from the first time someone thought to wonder what those shiny points of light were in the night sky, or squatted down on his haunches to study the comings and goings of ants, or started noting the monthly cycle of the moon. We've come a long way since then - from Lucretius's epic poem on the atomic theory of Epicurus, a Greek philosopher who lived about 300 B.C.E (Bolles 420), through the Scientific Revolution of the 17th and early 18th centuries, which brought us, among other things, "precise time measurement, enhanced astronomical observation, selective animal and plant breeding, technical advances in navigation, [and] chemical substance analysis" (Jardine 7), to quantum mechanics, chaos and string theory, molecular biology and black holes. Rhetoric has been around almost as long as science has, perhaps formally beginning with Isocrates, Plato and Aristotle. Unlike science, however, rhetoric has fallen on somewhat hard times, becoming "a shabby little weasel word in most circles" (Harris 282). Putting the word rhetoric together with the "god term" science may seem like a contradiction in terms, but this paper will demonstrate that science is actually, as Harris puts it, "profoundly rhetorical," and the last few decades have seen a blossoming of the discipline now known as rhetoric of science. A Brief History of Science Writing Around 444 B.C.E, Herodotus provided a detailed account of the silting of the Nile which accounted, he said, for the creation of the greater part of Egypt. Based on "personal observation, on curiosity about the natural processes that account for the observations, and on speculation about what these processes mean generally for the natural world" (Bolles 125), his account is one of the first examples of what we what we now call "science writing." Besides being a painter, sculptor, architect and engineer, Leonardo Da Vinci wrote about a curious phenomenon brought to his attention by local peasants in Milan: seashells and corals which they had found in the

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mountains. How did seashells get to those mountains? He never found out, but his efforts reveal a "scientific imagination striving in an unscientific age" (105). Lavoisier's The Elements of Chemistry, which was published in 1789, revolutionized the study of chemistry by developing a system of nomenclature that "forces clear thought and aids in understanding" (379), removing chemistry permanently from its alchemical roots. His system stands today as the foundation on which all chemistry is based. When Alfred Wegener first proposed the theory of continental drift in 1929 in On the Origins of Continents and Oceans, he was ridiculed and dismissed. He was, after all, a meteorologist, not a geologist, but he diligently amassed facts based on observation, both his own and those of others, and history has since proven him right (198). Scientific discourse isn't limited to writing, of course. But the long history of science writing, even if it has seemed in the past more "personal" than "scientific," is still about human beings curious about the world around them striving to persuade others of the validity of what they've found, which is the essence both of science and rhetoric. The Rhetorical Nature of Science Thomas Kuhn opened a Pandora's box of controversy with his 1962 book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." By describing how "normal" science works and how normal science gets upended during scientific revolutions, what Kuhn calls "paradigm shifts," he helped topple science from its lofty heights of rational certainty, placing it instead in the world of the probable and the contingent--in other words, into the sphere of rhetoric. Kuhn makes a distinction between "normal" science - the everyday work that most scientists do based on an established scientific foundation - and "revolutionary" science, the type that questions the very foundation on which "normal" science is built. Normal science, he says, consists mainly of extending the knowledge of the facts revealed by the established paradigm,

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increasing the extent of the match between those facts and the predictions the paradigm enables scientists to make, and by further clarification of the paradigm itself (24). Normal science can only function within an established paradigm which determines both the problems that can be addressed and the "acceptable" solutions to those problems. Asking questions or coming up with solutions to those questions in a way that violates the boundaries of the paradigm is frequently dismissed, ignored, attacked or ridiculed, responses which are rhetorical in themselves. Normal science progresses through a "strong network of commitments - conceptual, theoretical, instrumental and methodological" (42), which is both limiting and liberating. Limiting, because it restricts the scientist's ability to "think outside the [paradigmatic] box," to use a popular phrase, but liberating because he can work freely within the boundaries established by the paradigm (24). Any anomalies he may come across are usually dismissed as errors with equipment, with the way the samples were prepared or with the experiment itself; rarely does a scientist question the underlying assumptions on which the experiment is based. Scientists will frequently "devise numerous articulations and ad hoc modifications of their theory in order to eliminate any apparent conflict" (78). Scientists also have strong, personal reasons for resisting paradigm change - the paradigm provides the scientist with the theory, the methods and the standards on which his professional career depends; the emergence of new theories, therefore, "is generally preceded by a period of pronounced professional insecurity" (67). "Revolutionary" science begins with anomalies in the sphere of normal science which become too numerous or too fundamental to ignore: the facts observed don't match the paradigm's predictions; something completely unexpected occurs during an experiment; some novelty in fact or theory has made itself know too many times to be dismissed as "scientific error." In other words, it begins with "the recognition that nature has somehow violated the

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paradigm-induced expectations that govern normal science" (53). It is followed, according to Kuhn, with a few brave souls willing to step out on a limb and re-evaluate the assumptions on which the existing paradigm is based, and this is where the fur really begins to fly, rhetorically speaking. Woodward has provided a historical and rhetorical analysis of the controversy between evolution and the Intelligent Design movement and he provides us with a classic case of how scientists respond when they are confronted with something potentially threatening to the existing paradigm. Whatever we may personally believe about the controversy, his comments highlight the deeply rhetorical nature of the controversy: …the [Intelligent Design] theory was pummeled in a stream of hundreds of hostile articles and editorials and a dozen critical books. Criticism of their ideas was only to be expected, but several aspects of this flow of words shocked members of the Intelligent Design Movement. First was the high level of contempt and hostility directed at their point of view. Second, and equally astonishing, was the pattern of crude distortion of their message and their motives - with the worst often coming from fellow academicians…they beheld their published critiques of Darwinism twisted beyond recognition…then dismissed with condescension as "nonscience." Worst of all, they found themselves accused of spreading dangerous misinformation and endangering the health of science and even our civilization (emphasis in original, Darwin Strike Back, 20).

Although this seems like an extreme example, this scenario is very much in keeping with Kuhn's description of the dynamics of paradigm change and the rhetoric that is an integral part of that change. This is not to say that Intelligent Design is necessarily on its way to superseding or

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overturning Darwinian evolution or its modern equivalent, but it does display the rhetorical forces brought to bear whenever a new paradigm seeks admittance to the scientific community. Throughout history science has experienced significant shifts - from a belief that the earth was the center of the solar system to the realization that the sun is the center; from a belief that each and every species was created separately by God to a belief in descent from a common ancestor through natural selection; from thinking of time as moving inexorably from past through present to future to the view that time can "bend back" on itself. Each and every one of these shifts, says Kuhn, took place through a process of persuasion. During the process, scientists fought and argued and bickered and resisted and tested the theory and challenged each other, but eventually most were persuaded of the validity (notice I didn't say "truth") of the new theory. Kuhn uses the word "converted" to describe the painful process of transferring allegiance from the old paradigm to the new one because in many cases it is not strict proof or hard facts that convinces the scientist (151). There is more going on here than "just the facts," because otherwise what would there be to argue about? Science doesn't develop by piling facts on top of facts, although that may be part of the process. Kuhn, however, provides a more radical view of how science progresses: "To understand why science develops as it does…one must understand…the manner in which a particular set of shared values interacts with the particular experiences shared by a community of specialists to ensure that most members of the group will ultimately find one set of arguments rather than another decisive. That process is persuasion" (200). The "facts" of nature don't speak for themselves. As the designated interpreters of nature, scientists must therefore supply the words, and they will do so in a way that supports the

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paradigm, in which they are immersed, the worldview on which their professional careers are based. If words both reflect and create a contingent and probable reality, and if the work of scientists is to persuade others of the validity of that reality, then science itself is rhetorical.

The Landmarks "Scientists argue. No one disputes that" (xi). Thus Harris begins his editor's introduction to "Landmark Essays On Rhetoric of Science," a collection of essays providing a smorgasbord of possibilities in the field. Campbell gives us a rhetorical analysis of Darwin's ethos in his classic On the Origin of Species, which he characterizes as a phenomenally successful work of persuasion ("Charles Darwin: Rhetorician of Science"). In "The Birth of Molecular Biology," Halloran compares the persuasive power of Watson and Crick's 1953 paper "Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" with an earlier paper by Oswald Avery, whose work actually laid the groundwork for Watson and Crick, albeit without receiving the credit he probably deserved (nor, for that matter, did Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray diffraction data demonstrated the double helical nature of DNA). The rhetoric used to establish a prior scientific claim is the focus of Reeves's essay "Owning a Virus," describing the controversy between American researcher Robert Gallo and researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris over which lab was the first to identify the HIV virus that causes AIDs. Myers takes us through the arduous process two scientists take to get their research articles published in prestigious peerreviewed journals in "Texts as Knowledge Claims," focusing on how the status of the research is validated by its publication in a particular journal and how scientific ethos is used to negotiate revisions and rewrites.

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These articles and more provide us with a birds-eye view of the range of possibilities within the discipline now called rhetoric of science. From resolving controversy to asserting knowledge claims to establishing priority of discovery to influencing public policy to changing the very assumptions on which a discipline is based, science is fundamentally rhetorical. "Like politics, science is so thoroughly saturated with rhetoric there is very little room for anything else" (Harris 17). From the writing of a grant proposal which has to compete with hundreds of other proposals for scarce funding to the experimental report that will (hopefully) establish a scientist's credibility in the scientific community to the reporting of significant research during the nightly news to the behind-the-scenes arguments over how to interpret ambiguous data, scientists use a wide range of rhetorical techniques to make their case both to the scientific community of which they are a part and to the public on which they depend for funding. Harris defines the rhetoric of science thus: What scientists do is interpret the empirical domain. What rhetors do is influence one another. What scientists do as rhetors is influence one another about interpretations of the empirical domain. In two easygoing definitions: science is the study of natural phenomena; rhetoric is the study of suasion…rhetoric of science is the study of suasion in the interpretation of nature (284). Using the essays republished in this book or the originals as a foundation, the rest of this paper looks at how the various elements of rhetoric relate specifically to science, specifically the uses of ethos and pathos as an integral part of scientific discourse, how analogies and metaphors are used to visualize complex phenomena and they can change the way data is perceived, how scientific discourse responds to a rhetorical situation, the value and uses of enthymemes in scientific controversies and the types of rhetorical genres one finds in scientific writing.

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Pathos in Scientific Discourse We think of scientists as being rational, logical and rather unemotional, at least in public. Scientific discourse is primarily based on logos, on appeals to reason; appeals to the character of the scientist are, we think, immaterial to the "facts" presented in the data, and appeals to emotion, pathos, is verboten. Yet Waddell cautions us that too heavy a reliance on logos at the expense of pathos may actually rob us of the ability to make wise decisions, since we would be lacking the moral compass that emotions can provide us. According to Waddell, "…overcoming our prejudice against emotion should open up the decision-making process and foster the critical skills needed to counteract demagoguery" (382). Waddell explores the uses of pathos during the 1976-1977 moratorium on recombinant DNA research in Cambridge, MA. A panel of residents from diverse ethnic groups, professions and neighborhoods were selected to serve on the Cambridge Experimentation Review Board (CERB) to determine what health risks the community might be exposed to as a result of this research (383). Although the panel made every effort to focus on the scientific facts of the case, pathos played a large part in their deliberations, primarily through the testimony of David Nathan as "the first witness to confront the committee with concrete human suffering" (385). As Chief of Hematology and Oncology at Children's Hospital in Boston, Nathan painted an emotional picture for the committee of what recombinant DNA research could mean for the children in his care. This stood in stark contrast to the testimony given by George Wald, a Professor of Biology at Harvard, who cited "the inviolability of the human germ plasm" and "three billion years of continuous life" as reasons to maintain the moratorium (386). Jasinski argued that there is "a growing consensus in the scholarly literature that (a) emotions are partly the result of cognitive processes and (b) there is a complex relationship

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between emotion and reason" (424), which supports the claim that, rather than being anathema to scientific discourse, pathos can actually enhance and deepen our response to the scientific issue at hand. Jasinski, citing Campbell, describes seven factors which tend to have significant impact on the persuasiveness of pathos: probability, or the likelihood of a particular outcome; plausibility, or how "true to life" the scenario seems to be; the importance of the issue to the audience; the issue's proximity in time, or how immediate it is, whether it's something that happened recently or is likely to happen in the near future; connection of place, or whether this issue is happening "in my neighborhood"; relation to persons concerned, which has to do with the fact that we tend to be much more concerned about an issue when we know the people involved and less concerned when the issue concerns strangers; the last factor affecting the impact of pathos is interest in the consequences, demonstrating that the audience has a vital personal interest in the issue at hand (422-423). We can see how at least some of these factors came into play during the CERB controversy. Wald, for example, provided "a detailed analysis of the safety hazards inherent in recombinant DNA research. He describes the danger, in light of microorganisms' propensity for mutation, of inadvertently creating hazardous recombinations" (Waddell 386). He used, in other words, plausibility ("microorganisms have a propensity for mutation"), as well as the importance of the issue ("hazardous recombinations") and the audience's interest in the consequences (his analysis of the "safety hazards") in an attempt to appeal to the committee's emotions, playing on their fears of unrestricted Frankenstein-like research. Later in the debate he "seems to suggest that Legionnaire's disease may be the result of recombinant DNA experiments" (389), which prompted a vehement denial from another scientist and an accusation that Wald was engaging in innuendo. Although Wald backed down from his claim, he did acknowledge that "it provides a

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wonderful model for what this kind of trouble would look like if it ever happened" (389), playing on connection to place ("here in our own backyard") and probability ("this is what could happen"). Nathan also appeals to the importance of the issue and relation to the persons concerned by giving specific instances of how this research could help the children in his care. It wasn't a big leap for the committee to imagine their own children benefitting from this research. Wald, on the other hand, lost rhetorical points by basing his emotional appeals on the supposed inviolability of "human germ plasm." There wasn't much of a contest between the emotional appeal of suffering children with names and faces and that of "three billion years of evolution." In evaluating the CERB controversy, Waddell also describes the struggle the committee had in distinguishing between "appropriate" and "inappropriate" emotional appeals. Nathan's emotional appeals were deemed "appropriate" and therefore were persuasive, while Wald's appeals were neither appropriate nor persuasive (393). The "construction of appropriateness," argues Waddell, "is best understood by considering logos, pathos and ethos as complementary appeals that continually blend and interact throughout the rhetorical process" (383). He notes that emotional appeals are generally built on a rational foundation and that logical appeals frequently have an emotional component. He goes on to say that "a speaker can enhance his credibility by appearing rational" and "the audience's judgment of the appropriateness of an emotional appeal may be influenced by their assessment of the speaker's ethos" (383). In public controversies, scientists can enhance their credibility, their ethos, by coming across as a human being with feelings, and our evaluation of the "appropriateness" of their "pathetic" discourse will have a lot to do with how persuasive the scientist is. Ethos in Scientific Discourse

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Part of Nathan's persuasiveness stemmed from his ethos as a passionate advocate for the children in his care, his lack of any interest in the research other than what it could mean for those children and his acknowledgment of his own biases when he states "I realize I'm a pressing parasite; I don't want this work to stop" (392). As Waddell sums up, "The four prominent features of Nathan's ethos - compassion, reasonableness, disinterestedness, and trustworthiness contrasted sharply with the ethos established by the opponents in general and by George Wald in particular" (392). A scientist's ethos is an integral part of what it means to be a scientist. A large part of the student's scientific training is his education in the norms and values of the scientific community, its practices and standards. His ability to internalize these values and standards will determine to a great extent his success in his chosen field. Prelli discusses Merton's scientific values or "norms" that form the core of ethos: universalism, community, disinterestedness and organized skepticism (106). Although Prelli has much more to say about these norms and how they might be used in scientific discourse, his overview is useful. Universalism refers to the scientist's basing his work on existing knowledge. If a scientist can't base his work on an existing foundation of accepted knowledge, he significantly damages his credibility. For example, Myers describes the process two scientists took in writing grant proposals for the National Institutes of Health: The first major section of the application for an NIH grant must show the significance of the research proposed. But significance only has meaning in relation to the existing body of literature of the field. Thus there is tension in defining one's claim; it must be original to be funded, but must follow earlier work to be science. These writers find their place in

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the community by making their texts fit in in two ways, with their citations and their terminology (50). The second value, community, refers to a scientist's place in the scientific community, whether he is associated with a "legitimate" research institution or not and whether his research can be viewed as supportive of his field or whether he is more of a "lone wolf," in which case he loses credibility with his colleagues. It also means that the scientist's work does not belong to him alone but to the scientific community, and ways of "sharing the wealth" include presenting papers at scientific conferences, publication in peer-reviewed journals and through informal contacts--email and word of mouth. It is true, however, that scientists are also very wary of being "scooped" by another researcher, not to mention the intense competition for priority of discovery, grant funding and the recognition that enhances one's prospects for future funding. According to Campbell, Darwin sat on his theory of evolution for about 20 years and was hard at work on another project when he received a paper from Alfred Wallace outlining his theory of evolution, which was almost identical to Darwin's, prompting Darwin to return to On the Origin of Species and complete the manuscript in less than a year (Landmark 3). Today we remember Darwin as the person who "discovered" evolution, while Wallace is largely forgotten. Gustin equated the quality of "charisma" with both universalism and community, in which the scientist's motivation stems not so much from a desire for prestige in the scientific community or public accolades or millions of dollars in grant funding, but from his sense that through his work he has "come into contact with what is essential in the universe…The esteem of a few and the self-esteem which the publication of an article (even though largely unnoticed by most!) evokes are associated with the individual's belief that he has said something true and important" (1124, 1125). Through publication in a professional journal, no matter how obscure,

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"confirms a contribution as scientific, that is, as true, thus linking the individual to the community and its tradition" (1126). It is through formal publication of one's results in a peerreviewed journal that the individual scientist develops and maintains his ethos as a scientist. Disinterestedness refers to the rigorous policing that is inherent in science as a whole; it is not a quality inherent in the individual scientist, which "prohibits active interest in doing research which would bring prestige or financial success in the lay community" (Rothman 106). It is not, in other words, "science for its own sake," although there may be some scientists who are so motivated. "Disinterestedness" as it was originally conceived by Merton and clarified by Wunderlich is an "institutional attribute" referring to the fact that "scientific research is under the exacting scrutiny of fellow-experts…the ultimate accountability of scientists to their compeers" (375). Wunderlich goes on to say "Individual scientists might very well be preoccupied with financial gain, prestige or career over knowledge for its own sake; so long as other scientists review and validate their work, science is characterized as being disinterested" (376). The value of organized skepticism refers to the suspension of judgment on a particular claim until it has been carefully and thoroughly scrutinized by the scientific community using empirical and logical criteria. This is, in part, the basis of the peer-review system for scientific journals - by subjecting your research to a "jury" of your peers, you are giving them permission to pick it apart and question your data, your methods, your conclusions and your credibility as a scientist. Once published, other researchers in your field will then take their turn, and it's not unusual for scientists to carry on a heated debate in the journals, using the public forum to bully, cajole, mock, dismiss or minimize one another when they disagree. On the other hand, it's also a way to collaborate with other researchers who may be working on the same sets of problems;

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they may have data that corroborates your findings, or vice versa. In any case, organized skepticism tends to keep spurious claims to a minimum. These norms can be used as the basis for evaluating a scientist's ethos. For example, Fahnestock analyzes "The Bering Crossover Controversy," in which the "early daters" are pitted against the "late daters" in determining exactly when man arrived in North America across the Bering Strait (Landmark 53-67). The late daters insist this event occurred about 12,000 years ago, while the early daters just as loudly insist that it may have occurred as early as 30,000 years ago, and both sides cite archeological evidence in support of their claims. Both sides, according to Fahnestock, use the norm of community in an effort to show that they are on the "right side" of the controversy. The late daters cite the fact that the majority of scientists agree with the 12,000year date as the "correct" date; the early daters, on the other hand, use the fact that they are in the minority to portray themselves as innovative and courageous. As Fahnestock puts it "Although it seems like the height of foolishness to claim that most people in your field disagree with you, it is obviously a way to represent your opponents as stodgy and your own view as progressive" (55). A scientist's connection with a legitimizing institution (or lack of it) and his place within a particular field of research also defines, and is defined by, his ethos. In Myers's analysis of the publication process for two scientists, one was writing in his own field and already had a history of publications; the other, Dr. David Bloch, "is an example of an experienced researcher trying to enter a new area of research relatively late in his career…He lacked…the network of contacts that even a newly graduated Ph.D. would have" (35). As Myers traces the path toward publication for these two researchers, Bloch's reviewers more often cited his lack of a foundation

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in the field in which he was writing; one reviewer "bluntly rejected his proposal as that of a newcomer to the field already full of people doing structure-function research" (44). Bloch's paper is also an example of how the norm of organized skepticism can be applied and how it serves to protect the scientific community from spurious claims. Although he is an experienced researcher in his own field of cell biology, in this case he is writing in a field other than his own, the evolution of nucleic acids, and at the time he was developing his ideas he had not yet had a chance to read the current literature (36). Although his article was eventually published, it was in a small, highly specialized journal of interest to only a few, rather than in the more prestigious and popular journal Nature, to which he submitted his article twice (65). Myers characterizes this decision as "an example of how the publication process works, protecting these researchers in other fields from just this kind of claim from outside their own research programs, and thereby preventing the capricious redirection of goals, the proliferation of research programs, and the scattering of resources" (94). Universalism, community, disinterestedness and organized skepticism form the foundation on which a scientist's ethos is built, and as such these characteristics (or lack of them) are frequently used as ammunition in the ongoing rhetorical battles between scientists. If one scientist can accuse the other of violating one or more of these tenets, he can effectively undermine that person's ethos and therefore undermine the claim being made. Some have taken issue with Merton's norms, and have identified the presence in scientific discourse of "counter norms" which are "wholly incompatible with those identified initially by Merton" such as particularism, solitariness, interestedness and organized dogmatism (Prelli 88). Particularism negates universalism by judging a scientist's work not by the technical merits of the claim but "on personal criteria, such as the ability and experience of the author"

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(106). The counter-norm of solitariness occurs when a scientist maintains property rights to his work rather than sharing it with the larger scientific community. He displays the counter-norm of interestedness when he serves "special communities of interest" as opposed to laying his work open on the table to be judged by his colleagues through a peer-reviewed publication process, and organized dogmatism comes in to play when instead of being skeptical of their own work as well as the work of others, they "assent fervently to their own findings while doubting the findings of others" (106). Rather than characterizing these as "norms" and "counter-norms," Prelli instead characterizes them as topoi, special topics or "commonplaces" that can be used in scientific arguments to challenge claims of another researcher by challenging their scientific ethos. In a case study of the book by Patterson and Linden, The Education of Koko, and a review of the book by Sebeok (Landmark 92), Prelli analyzes how both Patterson and Sebeok use these topoi to either diminish (in the case of Sebeok) or establish (in counter arguments by Patterson) Patterson's scientific ethos and thus to challenge her claim: that the gorilla Koko had learned to use American Sign Language to the extent that "it can ask questions, lie, insult, joke, apologize and even express grief" (92). The reviewer, Sebeok, used the topoi of universality to question Patterson's capabilities as a competent experimenter, her data and her interpretation of the data. He called on the topoi of organized skepticism to cast doubt on her scientific objectivity and judgment, saying she was too emotionally connected with Koko to render dispassionate judgment. By emphasizing Patterson's lack of membership "in any legitimate research institution" (94), Sebeok calls on the topoi of community to argue that she is therefore not a "real" scientist, an argument he builds on by bringing up her difficulties in securing funding for her project and the fact that she has failed to

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publish in any peer-reviewed journal in her field, publishing instead in popular magazines such as National Geographic and Reader's Digest (94). Lastly, he challenges her disinterestedness by asserting that her research is more for public attention than legitimate scientific research designed to contribute to the scientific community's knowledge base. Patterson responds to these attacks primarily by emphasizing the "revolutionary" nature of her research and its results. One of the hallmarks of a scientific revolution is fierce resistance by the established scientific community to anything that threatens to undermine the existing paradigm. By characterizing the negative review by Sebeok as a validation of her research, Patterson can claim to be at the forefront of a Kuhnian revolution, using the topoi of particularism, solitariness, interestedness and organized dogmatism to make her case. By making virtues of the weaknesses pointed out by Sebeok, Patterson lends credibility to her scientific ethos and gains a hearing for her claims, at least with those disposed to buy in to her "revolutionary" viewpoint. Rather than being a side note to scientific discourse, ethos is an essential rhetorical tool in almost every aspect of the profession. It determines whether a scientist will get the funding he needs to do his research, and how much funding he will get; it both determines and is a reflection of his standing and status in the scientific community; it is a factor in whether his research gets published or not and in which journals, and it affects his ability to gain a hearing for the claims he makes. Ethos, as we have seen, is not a given; it is rhetorically constructed and rhetorically maintained, and the very criteria used in scientific discourse to challenge a scientist's ethos Merton's norms of universalism, community, disinterestedness and organized skepticism - can be countered when their opposites are turned into virtues.

What's in a Name? The Use of Analogy and Metaphor in Scientific Discourse

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Scientists come up with some fascinating ways to describe the universe - "black holes" and "dark matter," the genetic "code" which can be "read" and "transmitted", quarks with characteristics such as charm, strangeness and color, proteins which are either "left-" or "righthanded." Space-time is frequently depicted as a rubber sheet distorted by planetary "marbles," not to mention the evolutionary "tree." Using analogies like these enables scientists (and the rest of us) to form a mental picture of the phenomena in question. So crucial is the ability to make effective use of analogies that "scientists could not conceptualize abstract and complex phenomena in order to describe and understand their properties" without them (Graves 44). Not only does the use of analogies help visualize complex phenomena, Graves also provides evidence that an analogy can affect how the data is perceived. During her extended ethnographic study of two physicists in an experimental physics lab, she sat in on their conversations as they attempted to explain their data based on an existing model. Their data, however, didn't quite fit the model they were using, and she records their efforts, both verbally and in their written reports, to develop an analogy that better fit the data. She makes the point that as long as they were focused on the existing model, they couldn't find a way to explain the anomalous data; it was only when they stepped away from the existing model and started brainstorming about other possibilities that they came up with a model that fit the data. In other words, says Graves, "[Their] conceptual framework affected how they perceived certain information (or experimental data) and what they viewed as significant" (39). One of the most persuasive cases of the use of analogy and metaphor in science, according to Campbell, is Darwin's On the Origin of Species. By making the analogy between artificial breeding and natural selection, Darwin was able to effectively make his case for a strictly materialistic world, without the need for any supernatural intervention (12). Artificial

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breeding of plants and animals was a given; we've been doing it for thousands of years and everyone could see how it led to variations within a species. Although he couldn't identify the mechanism of change, Darwin's use of the analogy was very persuasive because people could see in their mind's eye the connection between artificial selection accomplished by breeders and "natural" selection accomplished by nature. Indeed, says Campbell, Darwin deliberately chose the phrases "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest" as being more in keeping with his persuasive goals (13). Darwin's personification of Nature was also a rhetorical choice, imbuing it with anthropomorphic characteristics such as the ability to "act," "select," "preserve," "reject" and "scrutinize" at will (12), a tradition that continues with today's evolutionists, who describe evolution as having "hit on a system for making multicellular organisms like animals and plants" some 600 million years ago1 and who express admiration for evolution as if it were a person capable of making choices: "It’s very cool that evolution has used a similar strategy in two very different kingdoms."2 The use of analogies, metaphors and models are an integral part of scientific discourse, whether it's a conversation between scientists, a conference presentation or published research. While the use of models or analogies may not change the data itself, they can change how a scientist perceives and interprets the data, and that makes them rhetorical.

Using Enthymemes

1

Wade, Nicholas, "Studies Find Elusive Key to Cell Fate in Embryo" New York Times, April 25, 2006.

2

Yoon, Carol Kaesuk. "From a Few Genes, Life's Myriad Shapes" New York Times, June 26, 2007. 20

For Smith, an enthymeme's central role in rhetorical persuasion is located in the root word thymos, which has historically meant "the seat of emotions and desires, or of motive" and as such it "accommodates ethical and emotional dimensions of argument" as well as the logical dimensions (117). Going beyond the notion of an enthymeme as a "truncated syllogism," he describes enthymemes as involving "probable premises and conclusions" that "depend on agreement between speaker and audience" for their persuasive power. Indeed, she says, "they are defined more accurately as syllogisms based on probabilities or signs" (117). We can state what is probably true or generally true in our major or minor premise, not what is certain, and our conclusion will only be probable. This type of contingent reasoning extends to scientific discourse in that a scientist's ability to persuade colleagues, the organization that is funding his research, the larger scientific community or an educated public relies on a shared understanding of what constitutes science and the underlying assumptions that inform the discipline -- its methodology, values, rules and standards. A scientist will have to expend much less rhetorical effort in persuading colleagues in his own discipline than he will in persuading members of a Congressional hearing who don't share the scientific culture in which the scientist is immersed from his undergraduate days, and it is the existence of a scientific "culture" that makes scientific discourse enthymematic. Completion of an enthymeme requires the audience to "fill in the blanks," which depends in large part on their shared values, attitudes and beliefs. In the CERB controversy over recombinant DNA research in Cambridge, MA, it became clear that the committee was dealing with far more than just rational scientific opinions as to whether the research posed a health hazard to the community. They were particularly moved by Dr. David Nathan's passionate plea for the continuation of the research as a means of alleviating

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the suffering of the children under his care from cancer and various genetic diseases, finding his argument "extremely compelling" (Waddell 387). Although it is doubtful he intended it as such, his emotional appeal took the form of an enthymeme, a type of logical syllogism in which one of the premises is suppressed, requiring the audience to fill it in. If the audience buys into the premises of the enthymeme and supplies the "correct" missing premise (the one the rhetor wishes them to supply) and they agree with the premise, then the enthymeme is persuasive. In Waddell's analysis of the controversy, he reconstructs Nathan's emotional appeal and supplies the missing premise: Saving lives is valuable. The spoken part of Nathan's appeal is, "Since the recombinant DNA research can save lives, the research is valuable" (391). The committee readily supplied the missing premise and agreed that saving lives is valuable, and in so doing they participated in the persuasion. Reconstructing Wald's emotional appeal, Waddell determined that his missing premise was "Violating three billion years of evolution is dangerous," a premise that was not accepted by the committee (or was not as persuasive as Nathan's) and therefore Wald failed in his attempts to persuade the committee to abandon the research (391). Although the inductive method of reasoning as developed by Francis Bacon is held out as the scientific ideal, the ideal seems to rarely find a place in the laboratory. Using the inductive method, one works from detailed observations or experiments to general conclusions. The scientist "collects" facts, either through observation or experiment and when he thinks he has enough information he forms a conclusion regarding what these facts may be saying about some phenomena in nature. This was the process Darwin supposedly used during his 5-year voyage aboard the H.M.S. Beagle, during which he developed his theory on the origin of species as described in the On the Origin of Species. According to Campbell, though, this version of the story is at odds with what one finds if one examines Darwin's private notebooks, in which it is

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clear that Darwin "not only understood the importance of his theory, but began his own research with a conclusion that transmutation had occurred, and held to that conclusion even when he could not factually support it" (8); in other words, Darwin's method was deductive, not inductive. Agreeing with Gross that "all deductive systems are enthymematic" and "the logics of science and rhetoric differ only in degree" (12), an analysis of the use of enthymemes in scientific discourse is crucial to understanding its persuasiveness. The use of enthymemes is universal, no less for the scientist than for the public, and yet there is always a danger that the non-scientific public will either not supply the required missing premise that would make the scientist's argument persuasive or, worse, will supply the "wrong" premise and come to an erroneous conclusion about the issue at hand and either cut off the funding or shut down the research. The very fact that science is fundamentally rhetorical in nature makes "enthymeming" a necessary part of scientific discourse; whether it accomplishes its purpose or not is another matter. The Rhetorical Situation: Exigence, Audience and Constraints Bitzer tells us that a rhetorical situation consists of an exigence, defined as "an imperfection marked by urgency," the audience, those "who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change" and constraints, which can "influence the rhetor and can be brought to bear upon the audience" and consists of beliefs, attitudes, traditions, interests, motivations and facts (43, 44). Prelli has explored the use of Bitzer's "rhetorical situation" in scientific discourse, identifying the types of "exigent circumstances" that may lead to the need for a rhetorical response as "…a gap in the collective body of knowledge…a pocket of data within a particular domain is not accounted for adequately by current theory…a need to locate propositions that

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enable explanation, prediction, and control of the phenomena at issue" (23). These kinds of situations may require the scientist to attempt to persuade his colleagues that there is a gap in knowledge or a discrepancy between theory and fact in the first place, that the problem is important enough to merit the time and funding to address the issue, or he may need to persuade them that he has a solution or at least a model that can assist in explaining anomalous data. His primary audience will be his colleagues in the field in which he works - fellow molecular biologists, paleontologists or physicists; a wider audience will be the larger scientific community consisting of scientists from many different fields, and finally there may be an audience consisting of the public or their representatives, as in the case of a Congressional hearing on a particular type of research. Further, the scientist has to tailor his case to the audience he is addressing in the format expected by that audience, which serves as a constraint upon the scientist. Presenting a paper for initial feedback from his colleagues during a scientific conference can be done using a looser, freer format than an article for a peer-reviewed journal which has to meet stringent guidelines in order to be considered for publication. Presenting scientific arguments during a Congressional hearing or through a popularization of the topic again puts constraints on the scientist in terms of what he can say and how he can say it. The "language barrier" must be overcome by translating scientific terms into (hopefully) plain English and yet it must be done in a way that doesn't diminish the science. Prelli makes the point that in order to succeed, "rhetorical discourse must reconcile the personal and private inclinations of a rhetor with principles acceptable to the audience. The apparent purpose of such discourse must suit audience expectations in the situation" (24).

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Scientific discourse is further constrained by the realities of doing scientific research that requires public funding. The availability of funding and negotiating research support are daily constraints on a scientist's ability to conduct the research he feels is warranted. He may have a problem getting the equipment or materials he needs; he may be limited in his ability to hire post-docs or pay graduate student stipends; he may have trouble getting the computer time he needs to process his data in a timely manner, or he may be so immersed in the grant writing process that he is limited in the amount of time he can devote to the actual research. Additional constraints may be his scientific reputation. As we saw in the discussion on ethos, Dr. Bloch had to establish his credibility rhetorically when he attempted to submit an article for publication in a field other than his own. Prelli informs us that a scientist who is already well-established in his field doesn't have to expend so much rhetorical energy and can therefore focus more on the matter at hand (101). Rhetorical genres Scientific discourse has its own rhetorical genres, even though we may not recognize them as such. Rather than fitting into a particular category in a literary way, scientific discourse has to fit a particular model or style of writing, each of which is intended to accomplish a particular persuasive purpose. Each genre has agreed-upon norms for what is acceptable within that genre and each has rules about the format, the style and the terminology that can be used. Each is intended to reach a particular audience for a particular purpose and is therefore constrained in its use of rhetorical strategies. A scientist gains credibility by publishing his claims in a reputable journal which will be read (and cited) by other researchers; to gain consensus for his claims, he must address the criticisms of other researchers in his field, either implicitly or explicitly. He gains additional attention and reaches a wider audience by publishing

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his claims in more popular scientific magazines such as Scientific American or New Scientist. Finally, he may be called upon to present his claims before a public or legislative committee in the process of developing public policy based on scientific evidence. In each of these cases-grants, peer-reviewed articles, popularizations and the formation of public policy--the rhetoric used is specific to the circumstances. Grant proposals are a huge part of the scientific discourse, because without such external funding most labs could not function or would have to severely limit their projects. Grants are fundamentally rhetorical in nature because "both writers and readers know that every textual feature of a proposal must be intended to persuade the granting agency…one must persuade without seeming to persuade" (Myers 41, 42). The scientist must demonstrate that he is capable of doing the work, that the work he is proposing is potentially interesting to other researchers in his field, that the problem to be solved or the question to be answered logically extends from the existing body of knowledge and, finally, that his approach to solving the problem or answering the question, i.e., the experimental design, is sound. Myers analyzed two proposals in detail, noting the constraints the proposal genre had on the authors. On one hand, noted Myers, "the form of scientific reports, the syntax of scientific prose, and the persona of the scientific researcher all work against the self-assertion" (46). And yet at the same time, making the case that the work is original and potentially useful requires the scientist to describe in detail work he has already done (thereby citing his own work), how this new project fits into that work and why his project should be selected for funding. The writer must balance self-assertion with caution and a sense of humility, or, as Myers put it, "not too meek, not too assertive" (59) and that inherent contradiction is apparent in the revisions of these two proposals. For example, in response to criticism from reviewers that he was too committed

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to his pre-conceived model, Bloch revised his draft to point where he eliminated the model altogether, emphasized the accumulated data and provided alternative explanations for that data (53). Like proposals, scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals are designed to persuade. They serve as a way for a scientist to "sell" himself, his lab and his research to his colleagues and to potential funding agencies, to stake his priority claim to a particular piece of knowledge, thereby gaining recognition through citations and increasing his credibility in the scientific community. The peer-review process is a fundamental part of the functioning of the scientific community in that "the procedures of review and revision of the text can be seen as the negotiation of the status that the scientific community will assign to the text's knowledge claim" (65), and as such the writing of an article is fundamentally rhetorical. The language and style the scientist uses to stake his claim and the relative importance of that claim to the larger community is a complex process involving both the scientist as a rhetor seeking to persuade his audience, and the reviewers who initially act as that audience. Once a scientist has published his claim in a peer-reviewed journal, then comes the wider discourse with the scientific community as a whole in the form of review articles, in which the scientist's research is placed "in the larger context of the issues of importance in the research field" (118). By using qualifiers ("The data presented by the researcher appears to be…"), redefining terms used in the original article ("What the researcher calls a discovery is, in fact, simply an observation of the behavior of…"), minimizing or questioning the methods or conclusions the original researcher draws, emphasizing one's own research in an identical area are all ways in which scientists rhetorically engage one another in order to come (hopefully) to a consensus.

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Another well know genre of scientific writing is, of course, the popularization of a particular piece of research. From Tuesday's "New York Times" science section to Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" to the evening news report about the latest breakthrough in medicine, what each has in common is audience. Rather than focusing on one's peers and colleagues, popular science articles are intended to reach a broader audience, some perhaps more educated than others or more conversant with scientific language than others. However, the transition from writing for a specialized audience who speaks your language to one that probably doesn’t fundamentally affects the language one uses to convey complex information. For example, Myers provides the title of a specialized journal article as "Insects as Selective Agents on Plant Vegetative Morphology: Egg Mimicry Reduces Egg Laying by Butterflies." The corresponding title in the Scientific American version is "The Coevolution of a Butterfly and a Vine" (149). Whereas professional journals use the passive voice more to take the researcher out of the picture ("It was found that…"), popular science articles prefer the active voice, with editors revising sentences to insert the researcher as the active participant in the narrative. Terminology changes from professional to popular writing, with frequent substitutions of popular terms for scientific ones, such as "egg-laying" for "oviposition" or "heavy with eggs" for "gravid" (182, 184). A problem that scientists usually have with popularization, though, stems from the tendency of editors to shift the focus of the article from the process to the organism (142). For example, the following sentence, taken from Carroll's "Making of the Fittest," shows the icefish itself the doer of the action, as if the icefish had control over the evolutionary process: "…the icefish have taken this to the extreme, by eliminating red blood cells altogether, and allowing their hemoglobin genes to mutate into obsolescence" (24).

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To take another example from Carroll, the following sentence seems to personify the evolutionary process itself, as if it somehow chose to do what it did: "…the antifreeze genes were somehow invented by Antarctic fish…The origin of the antifreeze proteins stands out as a prime example of how evolution works more often by tinkering with materials that are already available…" (26). I'm not sure if this is what the author intended, but such "directed evolution" surely gives ammunition to the proponents of Intelligent Design. Another crucial genre in scientific discourse is that of public policy. More and more, the public is called upon to make decisions and pass judgment on scientific research that has profound implications for our health, safety and our future. The controversy over climate change is a case in point: Is it real or not? Is it due to human activity or is it part of a "normal" cycle throughout the millennia? How fast is it changing? How do we measure the changes? Who will be affected and what can we do to address it? Like it or not, scientists are required to lend their voices and expertise to a variety of scientific issues: the use of embryonic stem cells in research, the necessity of flu vaccines and who should get them when there are limited supplies, whether to allow recombinant DNA research to proceed, whether to allow a Level 3 biohazard facility to be built in your community, and is it true that when scientists start up the new super collider in Switzerland the world will end? What makes such discussions so much more difficult, at least from the scientist's perspective, is that there isn't a shared culture; scientists and lay people simply don't speak the same language, and much of a scientist's persuasive efforts, if he is wise, will be expended in trying to establish a shared language, a foundation of shared values and beliefs, albeit with no guarantee that he will succeed. That in and of itself is what makes scientific public policy rhetorical - it is necessarily contingent.

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Public policy discussions are rhetorical in nature, drawing as they do on the interaction of logos, ethos and pathos, the definition of terms, the style of presentation, how one addresses claims and counter claims and even the venue used to make the presentation: there is a different rhetorical "flavor" between presenting evidence at a Congressional subcommittee hearing than there is in a lab or hospital setting, and all of this affects how scientists are perceived in general and how persuasive their claims are to the public. Summary This paper began with an overview of what we mean by "rhetoric of science," outlining some of the history of scientific discourse, finding that rhetoric and science have a long history together, even though it has only recently been studied as an integrated discipline. We then outlined Kuhn's description of both "normal" science and "revolutionary" science and learned that rhetoric is fundamental to both. Rather than being antithetical to scientific discourse, we found that ethos and pathos are integral to a scientist's ability to persuade others of the validity of his claims, and that ethos in particular has everything to do with how the scientist functions as a scientist. The rhetorical choices that a scientist makes when he chooses analogies and metaphors both describe and create his "reality" and allow him to make cognitive leaps he may not have otherwise, not to mention their persuasive power as a mental or visual tool. Enthymemes, we found, are dependent upon a shared culture of values, attitudes and beliefs and may be more or less persuasive depending on the audience being addressed. We also found that Bitzer's "rhetorical situation" comes into play with its exigent circumstances, audience and constraints, and that scientific discourse has its own genres, each with its own rhetorical purpose. Unless one is making a simple statement of scientific fact like "water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit," all scientific discourse is necessarily a matter of what is probable and contingent,

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which puts it squarely within the boundaries of rhetoric. Data rarely "speaks for itself" and so scientists, whether they want to be or not and whether they mean to be or not, are not just scientists but also rhetors.

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Works Cited Bitzer, Lloyd. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 1, 1968, pp 1-14. Bolles, Edmund Blair, ed. Galileo's Commandment: 2,500 Years of Great Science Writing, New York: W.H. Freeman & Co., 1999. Campbell, John Angus. "Charles Darwin: Rhetorician of Science," Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science, R. Allen Harris, ed. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997. Carroll, Sean. The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution. W. W. Norton, 2007. Fahnestock, Jeanne. "The Bering Crossover Controversy," Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science, R. Allen Harris, ed. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997. Graves, Heather Brodie. "Marbles, Dimples, Rubber Sheets, and Quantum Wells: The Role of Analogy in the Rhetoric of Science." Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Winter, 1998), pp. 25-48. Gross, Alan. The Rhetoric of Science. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. Gustin, Bernard H. "Charisma, Recognition, and the Motivation of Scientists." The American Journal of Sociology, Vol 78, No. 5 (Mar., 1973), pp. 1119-1134. Harris, R. Allen. "Assent, Dissent, and Rhetoric in Science" Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Winter, 1990), pp. 13-37. --- Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science . R. Allen Harris, ed. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997. --- "Rhetoric of Science" College English, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Mar, 1991), pp 282-307. Jardine, Lisa. Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution, New York: Nan A. Talese, 1999. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 3rd Ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996. Myers, Greg. Writing Biology. Wisconsin: The U of Wisconsin Press, 1990. Prelli, Lawrence. "The Rhetorical Construction of Scientific Ethos," Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science, R. Allen Harris, ed. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997. --- A Rhetoric of Science: Inventing Scientific Discourse. Columbia: South Carolina Press, 1989. Rothman, Robert A. "A Dissenting View of Scientific Ethos" The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Mar., 1972) pp. 102-108. Smith, Valerie J. "Aristotle's Classical Enthymeme and the Visual Argumentation of the Twenty-first Century" Argumentation and Advocacy, Vol. 43 (Winter & Spring 2007): pp. 114-123. Waddell, Craig. "The Role of Pathos in the Decision-making Process" Quarterly Journal of Speech, 76 (1990) 381400. Woodward, Thomas. Darwin Strikes Back. Michigan: Baker Books, 2006. --- Doubts About Darwin: The History of Intelligent Design. Michigan: Baker Books, 2003. Wunderlich, Richard. "The Scientific Ethos: A Clarification" The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Sept., 1974) pp. 373-377.

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