Understanding Scientific Prose (Rhetoric of the Human Sciences) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299139042 ISBN 13: 9780299139049

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993

Synopsis

Examining science as a rhetorical enterprise, this book seizes upon one scientific essay-"The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme"-and probes it from many angles.  Written by prominent evolutionary theorists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin and first published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London in 1979, the "Spandrels" article is both serious science and vivid prose. Applying methods inspired by Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Ferdinand de Saussure, and others, the contributors employ a range of interpretive strategies. Stephen Jay Gould adds his own comments, and the full text of the essay "Spandrels" is reproduced as an appendix. Applying methods inspired by Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Ferdinand de Saussure, and others, the contributors employ a range of interpretive strategies. Stephen Jay Gould adds his own comments, and the full text of the essay "Spandrels" is reproduced as an appendix.

About this title

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: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0299139042
• ISBN 13: 9780299139049
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 406
• Editor: Selzer Jack