Rhetoric of Science

Gender, Lifecourse and Publication Decisions in Toxic-Exposure Epidemiology: 'Now!' vs. 'Wait a Minute!'

by David Rier

Social Studies of Science 33:269-300; 2003

Existing studies of gender and lifecourse in science have not focused on publication decisions, and even less so for... more Existing studies of gender and lifecourse in science have not focused on publication decisions, and even less so for publication of studies liable to attract media and public attention. This paper is based on semi-structured interviews with 61 U.S. toxic-exposure epidemiologists about their publication decisions. It examines gender differences in how scientists, as they move through the lifecourse, approach publication decisions for research bearing potential societal implications. Though preliminary, the data suggest that males are overall more comfortable than females with pursuing visible publication and handling media coverage. However, males and females may begin to crisscross over time. Specifically, males started out in publishing potentially controversial papers in visible journals likely to attract media and public attention, but grew more cautious with age, rank, and experience. Amongst females, the situation was less homogenous: while some (often, the most elite) reported patterns similar to males’, more reported following the reverse pattern as they moved through the lifecourse. These differences may stem in part from gender differences in self-confidence, risk-taking, and competitiveness. The wider significance and limitations of the data are discussed, and lines of further research (including nine testable hypotheses) are suggested.

KEYWORDS:
Gender; Lifecourse; Risk-taking; Epidemiology; Scientific Publication; Media

Publication Visibility of Sensitive Public Health Data: When Scientists Bury their Results

by David Rier

Science and Engineering Ethics 10:597-613; 2004

What happens when the scientific tradition of openness clashes with potential societal risks?  The work of... more What happens when the scientific tradition of openness clashes with potential societal risks?  The work of American toxic-exposure epidemiologists can attract media coverage and lead the public to change health practices, initiate lawsuits, or take other steps a study’s authors might consider unwarranted.  This paper, reporting data from 61 semi-structured interviews with U.S. toxic-exposure epidemiologists, examines whether such possibilities shaped epidemiologists’ selection of journals for potentially-sensitive papers.  Respondents manifested strong support for the norm of scientific openness, but a significant minority had or would/might, given the right circumstances, publish sensitive data in less-visible journals, so as to prevent unwanted media or public attention.  Often, even those advocating such limited “burial” upheld openness, claiming that less-visible publication allowed them to avoid totally withholding the data from publication.  However, 15% of the sample had or would, for the most sensitive types of data, withhold publication altogether.  Rather than respondents explaining their actions in terms of an expected split between “pure science” and “social advocacy” models, even those publishing in the more-visible journals often described their actions in terms of their “responsibility”.  Several practical limitations (particularly involving broader access to scientific literature via the Internet) of the strategy of burial are discussed, and some recommendations are offered for scientists, the media, and the public.

KEYWORDS:  Publication; scientist; responsibility; ethics; epidemiology

Audience, Consequence, and Journal Selection in Toxic-exposure Epidemiology

by David Rier

Social Science & Medicine 59(7):1541-46; 2004.

Even preliminary toxic-exposure epidemiology papers can spark "media scares" and questionable reactions... more Even preliminary toxic-exposure epidemiology papers can spark "media scares" and questionable reactions amongst the public. Concerns for the social consequences of publication can lead epidemiologists--despite the advantages of visible publication--to choose a more obscure outlet for potentially sensitive studies. Interviews with 61 U.S. toxic-exposure epidemiologists indicate that investigators generally sought visible journals to transmit their work to the widest relevant audience. Yet up to 36%-46% of this sample sometimes have sought or would seek to keep their research from a public who, they feared, might misuse their results. Implications for the boundaries between science and society (including evidence of hidden scientific activism and ‘‘inert’’ public activism) are discussed, and six hypotheses for further research are proposed.
KEYWORDS: Epidemiology; publication; scientific responsibility; media; toxic exposure

The Versatile "Caveat" Section of a Scientific Paper: Managing Public and Private Risk

by David Rier

Science Communication 21:3-37; 1999.

Are toxic-exposure epidemiologists influenced, when writing the “caveat’ portion of their papers, by how the media,... more Are toxic-exposure epidemiologists influenced, when writing the “caveat’ portion of their papers, by how the media, public, and courts might use their work? Qualitative interviews with 61 epidemiologists revealed that they relied on caveats to manage “public risk”--inappropriate use of their work by non-scientists. However, few considered caveats effective for this task. Caveats may be more important for managing professional risk, for subjects used caveats to: preempt criticism; advertise their credibility; adhere to conventions; hedge; and deflect attention from flaws in their papers. The data bear implications for the definition of "science," demarcation of scientists from non-scientists, and scientists' responsibility.

Writing Material in Chemical Physics Research: The Laboratory Notebook as Locus of Technical and Textual Integration

by Chad Wickman

Distortion and the Politics of Pain Relief: A Habermasian Analysis of Medicine In the Media

by Amy Koerber

Published in Journal of Business and Technical Communication, July 2008, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 364-391

This article invokes Habermas's ideal speech situation to analyze the controversy surrounding a recent study of pain... more This article invokes Habermas's ideal speech situation to analyze the controversy surrounding a recent study of pain relief for women in labor. Using Habermas's concepts, the authors argue that distortion of scientific and medical information originated in the New England Journal of Medicine article that first reported the study's results. Thus, their analysis aims to complicate the assumption that such distortion starts only with public reporting and to expose the ways that scientific or medical research from the beginning can be reported to either facilitate or preclude public debate and understanding of complex issues.

From Folklore to Fact: The Rhetorical History of Breastfeeding and Immunity, 1950# 82111997

by Amy Koerber

Published in Journal of Medical Humanities, September 2006, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 135-196

This article examines the recent construction of human milk’s immune-protective qualities as scientific fact,... more This article examines the recent construction of human milk’s immune-protective qualities as scientific fact, demonstrating that long-standing controversies about human milk’s immune-protective effects have not been resolved by a particular scientific discovery. Rather, experts’ consensus on how to respond to this uncertainty has been transformed, and this transformation has had as much to do with a change in the metaphor that governs interpretation of evidence about immune protection as it has with discovering new evidence about either human milk or the antibodies in it.

From Folklore to Fact: The Rhetorical History of Breastfeeding and Immunity, 1950# 82111997

by Amy Koerber

Published in Journal of Medical Humanities, September 2006, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 135-196

This article examines the recent construction of human milk’s immune-protective qualities as scientific fact,... more This article examines the recent construction of human milk’s immune-protective qualities as scientific fact, demonstrating that long-standing controversies about human milk’s immune-protective effects have not been resolved by a particular scientific discovery. Rather, experts’ consensus on how to respond to this uncertainty has been transformed, and this transformation has had as much to do with a change in the metaphor that governs interpretation of evidence about immune protection as it has with discovering new evidence about either human milk or the antibodies in it.

Distortion and the Politics of Pain Relief: A Habermasian Analysis of Medicine In the Media

by Amy Koerber

Published in Journal of Business and Technical Communication, July 2008, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 364-391

This article invokes Habermas's ideal speech situation to analyze the controversy surrounding a recent study of pain... more This article invokes Habermas's ideal speech situation to analyze the controversy surrounding a recent study of pain relief for women in labor. Using Habermas's concepts, the authors argue that distortion of scientific and medical information originated in the New England Journal of Medicine article that first reported the study's results. Thus, their analysis aims to complicate the assumption that such distortion starts only with public reporting and to expose the ways that scientific or medical research from the beginning can be reported to either facilitate or preclude public debate and understanding of complex issues.

"_Chess RHIZOME_ and Phase Space: Mapping Metaphor Theory Onto Hypertext Theory

by Martin E. Rosenberg

Published in _Intertexts_ Vol. 3 # 2, Fall 1999: Special Issue: "Webs of Discourse: The Intertextuality of Science Studies." edited by Bruce Clarke. Available online at: http://bart.tcc.virginia.edu/tradzoneworkshop/Papers/Chess%20Rhizome.pdf
A translation into Portuguese, for the second volume on _Education and Transdisicplinarity_, edited by Sommerman, de Mello and Barros, was published by UNESCO, and a copy of that volume may be downloaded here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/6732198/Ed-e-Transd-II-Unesco

_Chess RHIZOME_ is a hypertext I have constructed to explore across disciplinary boundaries the range of references to... more _Chess RHIZOME_ is a hypertext I have constructed to explore across disciplinary boundaries the range of references to chess, the chessboard, its pieces, its rules, and the peculiar role that time plays in the process of unfolding the game itself. The method informing _Chess RHIZOME's design draws on the work of Gilles Deleuze in the forging of contingent alliances among the disciplines of science, philosophy and the arts, for the purposes of conducting epistemological investigations. The motive for this project is to explore metaphor (or tropes more generally) as a site for trans-disciplinary study. Particularly, _Chess RHIZOME_ exploits the unstable nature of Richard Boyd's Theory Constitutive Metaphor (TCM) as a ground for epistemological criticism, by mapping the logics of the drift of the chess trope across disciplinary boundaries, in order to make visible its cultural work. The three particular logics that this hypertext project attempts to model are 1) genealogical: the causal drift of a trope from one user to another; 2) naive: the opaque, unself-conscious use of a particular trope, with an uncritical acceptance of its epistemological baggage; and 3) ironic: the transparent and self-conscious use of a particular trope, with a a skeptical perspective on its epistemological baggage. Later in this essay I will discuss these three tropic logics as a methodology for interdisciplinary studies.

"Postmodern Spacings: A Colloquy

by Martin E. Rosenberg

This was a colloquy on the nature of space, its hybridities with respect to virtual and real environments, in terms of the relationship between different constructions of space as well as different models of duration. Participants included Mark Nunes, Martin E. Rosenberg and Paul Bains.

_Postmodern Culture_: Found online at Project MUSE (JHUP): Volume 8, Number 3, May 1998
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/toc/pmc8.3.html

Review of Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge: A New Beginning for Science and Technology Studies by Steve Fuller and James Collier

by Francis Remedios

Philosophy in Review, Vol 25, No 2 (2005), pp 106-109

Risk, Controversy, and Rhetoric: Response to Goodnight

by Carolyn R. Miller

Argumentation and Advocacy 42: 1 (2005): 37–37.

Writing Social Psychology: fictional things and unpopulated texts

by Michael Billig

Published in British Journal of Social Psychology, 2011, 50, 4-20

«Mathématiques: la couleur des preuves»

by Jacques Dubucs

Co-authored with Monique Dubucs, publishes in Vincent de Coorebyter (ed.)
Structures rhétoriques dans les sciences, L’interrogation philosophique,
pages 231–249. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1994.

How did university departments interweave the Web: A study of connectivity and underlying factors

by Julian Newman

A call for new courses to train scientists as effective communicators in contemporary government and business settings.

by Scott A. Mogull

[Forthcoming, 2010]  In J. J. Conklin & G. F. Hayhoe, "Qualitative Research in Technical Communication." New York: Routledge Communication.

Chronology of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising Regulation in the United States

by Scott A. Mogull

Published in 'AMWA JOURNAL' 2008

Promotion of pharmaceutical drugs to consumers, called direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, has increased signifi-... more Promotion of pharmaceutical drugs to consumers, called direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, has increased signifi- cantly since 1997, when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reevalu- ated its regulations of pharmaceutical manufacturers. DTC advertising has been debated in the literature, with most articles citing the 1997 shift in FDA policy. However, the current position of the US government on DTC advertising has more than a century of develop- ments. This article outlines the legisla- tive and regulatory milestones that have given rise to the current legal framework of DTC advertising in the United States.

Discuss the co-existence of different modes of scientific proof, demonstration and argumentation in Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus

by Pavle Ninkovic

Realism, Relativism and Evolutionary Psychology

by Maarten Derksen

Published in Theory & Psychology, 20(4), pp.467-487, 2010.

Against recent attempts to forge a reconciliation between con-
structionism and realism, I contend that, in... more Against recent attempts to forge a reconciliation between con-
structionism and realism, I contend that, in psychology at least, stirring up
conflict is a more fruitful strategy. To illustrate this thesis, I confront a
school of psychology with strong realist leanings, evolutionary psychology,
with the relativist critique of realism proposed by Edwards, Ashmore, and
Potter. I show that evolutionary psychology employs the kind of “bottom-
line arguments” that they identify as typical of realist rhetoric. However, it
also proposes a modified realism based on a concept of mediation, which
accommodates a moderate social constructionism. I argue that there are
good reasons to reject such a settlement between realism and construction-
ism. The theories of emergence that have been developed both in biology
and in science and technology studies cast doubt on the view of the brain as
a fully specifiable mediator.