Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Conference Presentations
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • February 13th: Introduction to User Design
    • February 15th: Instructions for Users
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 20th: The Rhetoric of Technology
    • February 22nd: Social Constructions of Technology
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
    • March 13th: Introduction to Information Design
    • March 15th: More on Information Design
    • March 20th: Reporting Technical Information
    • March 27th: The Great I, Robot Analysis
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 24th: Introduction to the Class
    • August 31st: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2022)
      • Rhetoric of Fear
    • November 16th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Finding Dominant Rhetorical Appeals
    • November 2nd: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • November 30th: Words and Word Classes
    • November 9th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • October 12th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 19th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 26th: Stylistic Variations
    • October 5th: Midterm Exam
    • September 14th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 21st: Coordination and Subordination
    • September 28th: Form and Function
    • September 7th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 12th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 19th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • April 26th:  Feminisms and Rhetorics
    • April 5th: Knoblauch. Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • February 15th: Isocrates (Part 2)
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 8th: Isocrates (Part 1)-2nd Half of Class
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 15th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • March 1st: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • March 22nd: Mary Wollstonecraft
    • March 29th: Second Wave Feminist Rhetoric
    • May 3rd: Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • February 14th: Fascism and Other Valentine’s Day Atrocities
    • February 21st: Fascism Part 2
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments
    • April 20th: Rhetoric/Composition Defines New Media
    • April 27th: Sub/Cultural Politics, Hegemony, and Agency
    • April 6th: Capitalist Realism
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
    • March 16th: Identity Politics
    • March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • March 2nd: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
    • March 30th: Hyperreality
    • March 9th: Globalization & Postmodernism
    • May 4th: Wrapping Up The Semester
      • Jodi Dean “The The Illusion of Democracy” & “Communicative Capitalism”
      • Social Construction of Sexuality
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society » September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6

September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6

  • Please note that Test 1 is next Wednesday, 9/14, on Canvas
    • Test 1 will open at 7:00 am and close promptly at 11:00 pm.
    • You’ll have 75 minutes to do it once you start.
  • So called 2nd Intelligence discussion on Charlotte Talks
    • If interested, check this out sometime.
    • No, it won’t be on any Tests or Exams. It’s just if you’re curious.

Ch. 5: The Non-Detection of Gravitational Radiation

Question inspired by the chapter: How do you prove something doesn’t exist?

Like Pasteur, Joseph Weber was trying to convince the scientific community of invisible forces, and he carefully constructed a device to find gravity waves. Like bacteria, you can’t see these waves with the naked eye or feel their force. What does gravity look like?

Because we like definitions…
Gravity is the force that causes objects to fall toward one another.
Gravity is a consequence of the curvature of spacetime.
Gravitational Constant: G=6.674 x 10-11N x (m/kg)2…we’ll leave that one to Physics.

Four Things to Take Away from the Chapter

  1. There is a heavy burden of proof for someone trying to persuade others of an unusual claim. New claims have to overcome a priori scientific skepticism. {Note the difference in the term a posteriori.}
  2. Experimenter’s regress: A continuous loop of reasoning that arises when testing for a result with experiments that aren’t decisive tools for confirming those tests. Did the experiment work? We’d need the outcome to answer that. Ok, what’s the outcome supposed to be? Not sure…we need an accurate experiment to test for that; therefore…
    • This is especially present in new, emerging sciences that don’t have established epistemologies.
  3. There were 11 reasons—none directly related to questioning scientific facts—for believing or not believing Weber’s results. The reasons ranged from perception of the scientist’s abilities and character to his nationality (p. 101).
  4. Dedication to one’s area of analysis affects one’s commitment to results.

Key Quotations

  • p. 91: “Most scientists agree that Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts that moving massive bodies will produce gravity waves.”
  • p. 92: Finding gravitational radiation is extremely difficult because, a correctly done experiment, needs to record “a minute fluctuation within the tiny force” of a gravity wave pulse.
  • p. 92-93: The “Weber-bar antenna….[doesn’t] really detect gravity waves[;] they detect vibrations in a bar of metal. They cannot distinguish between vibrations due to gravitational radiation and those produced by other forces….the bar must be insulated from all known and potential disturbances.”
    • You know what this means…can one control for all outside disturbances?
    • Also, do you recall other experiments that had to deal with vibrations?
  • p. 94: “Weber’s claims are now universally disbelieved….he seemed to find far too much gravitational radiation to be compatible with contemporary cosmological theories.”
  • p. 102: “No-one has since [1975] concluded that they found anything that would corroborate Weber’s findings.”
  • p. 95-96: Scientists can’t just assume others will accept their results if they themselves are the only ones able to find results. “Persuading other scientists to try to disprove a claim is a useful first step.”
  • p. 97: “Picking the right experimental elaboration to convince others requires rhetorical as well as scientific skills.”
  • p. 97: As with other experiments, many conditions need to be controlled for or accounted for.
    • How do we know the force of the gravity waves if the device records tiny movements such as atmospheric pressure, vibrations from surroundings machines, or atomic movements?
    • p. 97: To dispute the claims also means one’s scientific credibility is on the line.
  • p. 99-100: A variety of colorful responses to Weber’s experiment…
    • faulty apparatus (as opposed to the Golgi Apparatus)
    • lack of skill
    • bad luck
    • small institution (University of Maryland is a huge school, by the way. It had over 35,000 students in the early 1970s when Weber did his experiments)
  • p. 100: “[I]t is hard to know what it means to do an experiment that is identical to another.”
    • Step back a second here. Why, if it’s so difficult to do an exact replica of an experiment, is replication key to others verifying you’ve established new scientific knowledge?
    • Consider the peer-reviewed community acceptance of scientific knowledge. One can’t just assert an experiment works if others can’t replicate it?
    • Think back to the “golden hands” argument in the worm runner chapter.
  • p. 101: “If there are gravity waves a good apparatus is one that detects them; if there are no gravity waves the good experiments are those which do not see them.”
    • Let’s unpack the above statement. How else might we say the same thing?
      • Gravity waves can only be found if they exist and shouldn’t be found if they don’t exist
      • See experimenter’s regress above for more information on this
  • p. 103: Weber lived, ate, and breathed his device. A contemporary scientist noted “[he] spends hours and hours of time per day per week per month, living with the apparatus….Weber gives his system…dedication—personal dedication.”
  • p. 106: “Reporting an experimental result is itself not enough to give credibility to an unusual claim….it must be presented very clearly and with great ingenuity.”

Conclusion: Rhetorical Maneuvers

  • p. 105: Early scientists, “in 1972….the first scientists to criticize Weber hedged their bets.” They reported negative results, but they also claimed that they could have done something wrong.
    • Remember, at this point, Einstein’s theories are the most accepted, so most scientists would believe gravitational waves in theory.

This is a rhetorical move. They might have been more confident than their published results show. They didn’t want to discredit Weber too strongly because they weren’t completely confident in their own results. After all, gravitational waves are theoretically possible. It wasn’t until Garwin emphatically dismissed Weber’s results that the scientific critical mass against Weber was established. Refuting someone else’s results too soon can be just as damaging to one’s reputation as publishing findings too early.

  • p. 107: “Before the resolution there was real and substantial uncertainty, and it was very reasonable uncertainty….After the resolution everything is clarified; high fluxes of gravity waves do not exist and it is said that only incompetent scientists think they can see them.”

Collins & Pinch argue that understanding controversial science is important to the non-scientist who must consider scientific matters that affect the public. The political-social dimensions of science and technology affect us more than what happens in a lab. Citizens in a democracy should be informed when they listen to journalists and others who filter technical information for them, and they should be informed voters.


Epilogue

They found proof of gravitational waves in February 2016. Here’s a short, one-page article that interviews Weber’s wife (Weber died in 2000) after the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration teams’ press conference announcing that they had directly detected gravitational waves. Let’s look at the final paragraph.

If you’re interested, here are two articles on gravitational waves, including a history of detection (unfortunately, Joseph Weber doesn’t make the cut…). They also have diagrams of the tool used to detect these waves:

  • Rothman, Tony. “The Secret History of Gravitational Waves.”
  • Sample, Ian. “Gravitational Waves from Star-Eating Black Holes Detected on Earth.”

Again, if interested (not required), check out discussion on Charlotte Talks episode from several years ago (2/4/2016).


Ch. 6: The Sex Life of the Whiptail Lizard

We move from physics to zoology, specifically, herpetology. Think about the big picture regarding epistemology because this chapter brings up the important (but often maligned) concept of interdisciplinarity. In many ways, all epistemologies are interdisciplinary because they share overlapping assumptions on how to produce valid knowledge. Interdisciplinary studies are good in that they ask fresh, insightful questions about traditional disciplines, but they are also considered suspect by traditional disciplines because interdisciplinary researchers are seen as outsiders encroaching on the establishment’s territory.

In this chapter, we have sub-disciplines within sub-disciplines and a messy route to valid scientific conclusions. Herpetology, the study of amphibians and reptiles, is a sub-discipline under Zoology, which is a sub-discipline under Biology. We could even say Cnemidophorus-ology (I made that “-ology” up) is a sub-discipline under Herpetology. All of these studies overlap in how knowledge should be created, but, as you read, the key players don’t all agree. Scientists have various approaches to their study, and those approaches come with assumptions that filter their analyses. We can assume there’s usually general agreement among members of a discipline (otherwise there would be no discourse communities), but we can’t assume beliefs are universally held by all members.

  • Cnemidophorus means greave-wearer in Ancient Greek
  • Greaves are leg armor, so you’ve probably outfitted various Assassin’s Creed characters with them

Three Things to Take Away

  1. Interdisciplinarity offers new ways to consider traditional sciences, but it also is controversial because it may challenge those traditional paradigms (governing assumptions or worldviews of so-called “pure” experts).
  2. Normally, scientists’ skills are considered a given; however, when a controversy arises, it’s necessary to show one’s expertise (prove it).
  3. Unlike physics, where experiments focus the debate, in this case, experiments aren’t possible. Debate surrounds interpretation of observations and pointing to the opponent’s missing evidence.
  4. Anthropomorphize: to ascribe human form or attributes to (an animal, plant, material object, etc.). Many scientists prefer not to use human-like qualities to describe animals (or other non-human phenomenon). It’s consider inaccurate. This is a general attitude and is maintained particularly in academic journals.

Facts are in the eye of the beholder, and “matters of fact are inseparable from the skills of the scientist used to produce them” (p. 116). Facts NEVER speak for themselves; humans speak for them: “As always the facts of nature are settled within the field of human argument” (p. 119). You’ve probably heard people say that scientists consider science to be “self correcting.” I hesitate to use that phrase. The reason is because science never corrects itself without human agents, and I want to make clear that humans pursue, test, debate, and establish science. The process isn’t metaphysical or magical. {Now, that I’ve explained my hesitancy, I’ll just use “self-correcting” without qualification.}

Key Quotations

  • p. 110: Crews studied the red-sided garter snake before the whiptail lizard. He noted a peculiar mating behavior. “The snakes’ sexual activities may seem strange to us, but they have adapted perfectly to the extreme conditions under which they live.”
  • p.110: Interdisciplinary—“Like many scientific innovators, Crews brings together approaches from a variety of areas that traditionally have gone their separate ways….By asking new questions of aspects of the behaviour and physiology of species that have already been studied, Crews was posing a challenge to the established experts.”
  • p. 111: “[O]btaining a controversial status for a set of ideas such that other scientists feel compelled to reject them in an explicit manner is a substantial achievement in itself.”
    • Basically, you often know you’ve done something right when the field goes out of it’s way to dismiss you.
    • And they may also claim a novel idea you have is “old” and “already been done” when they refuse to publish you innovative work–I’m talking about you the field of technical writing/communication!
  • p. 112: “All biologists agree that [the a, b, c, d illustrations—figure 6.1] is what happens. They disagree over the meaning to be given to the observation.”
  • p. 113: Cuellar & Cole, critics of Crews, saw him as an “inexperienced upstart….[who] immediately seized upon a peculiar piece of behaviour, noticed in a very few animals, and [blew] it up into a sensational claim.” Also, “the sexual exploits of lizards made for compelling media coverage.”
  • p. 113: the critics felt “[t]he behavior [Crews] had observed was trivial: it was unnatural and a product of captivity.”
  • p. 115: A common rhetorical stance is to write a paper that portrays “scientists [as] merely mediators or passive observers of Nature.” This is important for maintaining the perception of objectivity.
    • For instance, scientists refer to themselves in third person and/or use passive voice:
      “The researcher observed the whiptail lizards…” (Clearly the research is the author)
      “Whiptail lizards A and B were observed…” (This removes the agent–the one observing the activity)
  • p. 115: Rhetorical savvy—Cuellar, a critic of Crews, admitted seeing the “pseudo-copulatory behaviour,” but, because he didn’t conclude the way Crews did, Crews “then went on to treat his failure to realize its significance as stemming from his own preconceptions.”
  • p. 115: “Accusations of carelessness are ineffective in resolving disputes because they tend to circularity.” In other words, one could say another observer is being careless about drawing (invalid) conclusions about an observation; on the other hand, the defendant could claim the critic is being careless for NOT coming to the same conclusions about an observation.
    • This is an excellent exit strategy for a relationship…
  • p. 117: Never able to definitively prove whether or not observations in captivity were ideal settings or distorted whiptail lizard behavior.
    • Similar to the “observer effect” in physics, captivity could alter animal behavior.
  • p. 118: Gentleman don’t engage in lowly bickering—“Many scientists are wary of getting entangled in controversies and perceive them to be the repository of shoddy science.”
  • p. 118: “By appealing to the rhetoric of experiment and testing…Crews can appear to have found a way to have advanced beyond the earlier controversy.”
    • That earlier controversy being a product of “a lack of firm experimental tests and decisive evidence.”

At the end of the penultimate section of the Chapter “Love Bites and Hand Waving,” Collins & Pinch claim, based on Crews’s approach to countering other criticisms, “the reader can speculate about the possible lines of argument Crews could have adopted in defence” of Cole & Townsend pointing out that his not recognizing “basking [of the whiptail lizard] from hand waving [as] a credibility problem” (p. 117-118).

What could those conclusions be? After having read the chapter, consider Crews’s perspective and think of three ways he, the rhetorically savvy scientist, would counter Cole & Townsend’s attack on his credibility as an observer.

The End…

Eventually, the controversy ended in a draw according to Collins & Pinch. Crews appears to be the more rhetorically savvy participant even if he wasn’t considered to have the same expertise in studying Cnemidophorus as Cuellar and others. Using hindsight, Crews appears to have rewritten the early history of the debate as “premature: an over-reaction of an underdeveloped field….By appealing to the rhetoric of the experiment and testing…Crews can appear to have found a way to have advanced beyond the earlier controversy.”

Lesson: Rhetorical savvy isn’t just for politicians and other charlatans. How one presents findings is important. Knowledge of the best, most well-done experiments never have a chance to get disseminated if the purpose for the communication isn’t established and it doesn’t conform to audience expectations.


Epilogue

If you’re interested in more on the whiptail lizard, here are two articles:

  • McGowan, Kat. “When Pseudosex Is Better Than the Real Thing.”
  • Wikipedia entry on the New Mexico Whiptail

Observing the “Same” Behavior

Although this isn’t exactly behavior, imagine what people observe when viewing animals in captivity. What might guide their conclusions?

  • Columbia Zoo: Zebra
  • Columbia Zoo: Gorilla
  • Columbia Zoo: Ostrich

Next Class

We’ll be finishing Collins & Pinch’s Golem: What You Should Know about Science on Monday, 9/12, when we review Ch. 7 and the Conclusion.* Then, on Wednesday, 9/14, you have Test 1 on Canvas. You take Test 1, Test 2, the Midterm Exam, and the Final Exam anywhere you have access to the Internet. Test 1 opens at 7:00 am and closes at 11:00 pm. You have 75 minutes to complete Test 1 once you start. Of course, that assumes you start it by 9:45 pm. The test will close promptly at 11:00 pm, so my advice is to do it early.
*You aren’t required to read the 30-page “Afterword: Golem and the Scientists,” but I encourage you to in order to reinforce the material. It’s a summary and prep for Test 1.

We’ll move onto the Prefaces and Ch. 1 in Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technology on Monday, 9/19. Then, there are no class notes on Wednesday, 9/21, because I’m giving you a catch up day. The Midterm Exam is right around the corner, so don’t blink! The semester will go by quickly!

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