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

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299139042 ISBN 13: 9780299139049

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993

Synopsis

Understanding Scientific Prose 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 "Span Full description

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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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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 edition

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0299139042
• ISBN 13: 9780299139049
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 408
• Editor: Selzer Jack