Understanding Scientific Prose (Rhetoric of the Human Sciences S.) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 029913900X ISBN 13: 9780299139001

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000

Synopsis

Studies one scientific essay - "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme", by evolutionary theorists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin - as an example, to demonstrate and test new analytical approaches to scientific rhetoric.

About this title

Review

""Understanding Scientific Prose does what no other book does: it analyzes in detail a scientific text by a scientist who is also a supremely skilled rhetor. Stephen Jay Gould is the equal, indeed the superior--in depth, breadth, and humanistic vision--of his nearest nineteenth-century counterpart, Thomas Henry Huxley. In bringing a good baker's dozen of perspectives together, all concentrated on one document, the book is particularly valuable."--John A. Campbell, University of Washington

"It is fascinating to learn that, like a kind of giant Rashomon, a text can be read with perfect sense and coherence in so many uncorrelated, truly orthogonal, and sometimes even contradictory ways. . . . I learned a great deal from these approaches, and had enormous fun seeing how a product of my own could be analyzed for itself, quite apart from my conscious intent."--Stephen Jay Gould

""Understanding Scientific Prose" does what no other book does: it analyzes in detail a scientific text by a scientist who is also a supremely skilled rhetor. Stephen Jay Gould is the equal, indeed the superior--in depth, breadth, and humanistic vision--of his nearest nineteenth-century counterpart, Thomas Henry Huxley. In bringing a good baker's dozen of perspectives together, all concentrated on one document, the book is particularly valuable."--John A. Campbell, University of Washington

"Fascinating. . . . I learned a great deal from these approaches, and had enormous fun." Stephen Jay Gould"

"Fascinating. . . . I learned a great deal from these approaches, and had enormous fun." Stephen Jay Gould

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About the Author

Jack Selzer is professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Kenneth Burke in Greenwich Village, published by University of Wisconsin Press, and is currently working on a sequel.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 029913900X
• ISBN 13: 9780299139001
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 406
• Editor: Selzer Jack