Assembling Arguments

Jonathan Buehl

Description

Scientific arguments—and indeed arguments in most disciplines—depend on visuals and other nontextual elements; however, most models of argumentation typically neglect these important resources. In Assembling Arguments, Jonathan Buehl offers a concentrated study of scientific argumentation that is sensitive to both the historical and theoretical possibilities of multimodal persuasion as it advances two related claims. First, rhetorical theory—when augmented with methods for reading nonverbal representations—can provide the analytical tools needed to understand and appreciate multimodal scientific arguments. Second, science—an inherently multimodal enterprise—offers ideal subjects for developing general theories of multimodal rhetoric applicable across fields.

In developing these claims, Buehl offers a comprehensive account of scientific persuasion as a multimodal process and develops a simple but productive framework for analyzing and teaching multimodal argumentation. Comprising five case studies, the book provides detailed treatments of argumentation in specific technological and historical contexts: argumentation before World War I, when images circulated by hand and by post; argumentation during the mid-twentieth century, when computers were beginning to bolster scientific inquiry but images remained hand-crafted products; and argumentation at the turn of the twenty-first century—an era of digital revolutions and digital fraud.

Each study examines the rhetorical problems and strategies of specific scientists to investigate key issues regarding visualization and argument: 1) establishing new instruments as reliable sources of visual evidence; 2) creating novel arguments from reliable visual evidence; 3) creating novel arguments with unreliable visual evidence; 4) preserving the credibility of visualization practices; and 5) creating multimodal artifacts before and in the era of digital circulation.

Given the growing enterprise of rhetorical studies and the field's contributions to communication practices in all disciplines, rhetoricians need a comprehensive rhetoric of science—one that accounts for the multimodal arguments that change our relation to reality. Assembling Arguments argues that such rhetoric should enable the interpretation of visual scientific arguments and improve science-writing instruction.

Sujets

• Disciplines
• Language Arts
• Thomas Kuhn
• Research program
• Visual reasoning
• ADVISE
• Emerging technologies
• Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
• Alternative hypothesis
• Anecdotal evidence
• Inductive reasoning
• Proofreading
• Meta-analysis
• Thought experiment
• Schematic
• Semantics
• Rebuttal
• Rhetoric
• Paradigm shift
• George Lakoff
• Reason
• Élaboration
• Thomas Samuel Kuhn

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 20 janvier 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 8
• EAN13: 9781611175622
• Langue: English

Extrait

Assembling Arguments
Studies in Rhetoric/Communication Thomas W. Benson, Series Editor
Assembling Arguments
Multimodal Rhetoric Scientific Discourse
Jonathan Buehl

The University of South Carolina Press
2016 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-561-5 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-61117-562-2 (ebook)
The lyrics reproduced from Joni Mitchell s Both Sides Now
on P. 139 are used with permission.
BOTH SIDES NOW
Words and Music by JONI MITCHELL
1967 (Renewed) CRAZY CROW MUSIC.
All Rights Administered by SONY/ATV MUSIC PUBLISHING,
8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203.
All Rights Reserved
For Gretchen
Contents
Series Editor s Preface
Acknowledgments
Part 1 Motives and Methods for a Multimodal Rhetoric of Science
1 Scientific Visuals: Rhetorical Potential and Rhetorical Problems
2 Toward a Multimodal Rhetoric of Science
Part 2 X-Ray Diffraction Crystallography
3 From Agreements to Images: The Rhetorical Foundations of X-Ray Crystallography
4 From Images to Arguments: Assembling a Multimodal Argument in 1912
5 From Arguments to Alternatives: Rhetorical Recirculation in 1912
Part 3 Seafloor Spreading
6 Mapping Motion through Magnetism: The Rhetorical Conception of the Vine-Matthews-Morley Hypothesis
7 From Artifact to Argument to Object of Agreement: The Assembly and Circulation of Magnetic Anomaly Maps
8 From Profiles to Timelines: The Assembly and Circulation of World-Moving Arguments
Part 4 The Twilight Zone between Clouds and Aerosols
9 Naming the Sky: Rhetorical Definitions and Atmospheric Science
10 Revising the Twilight Zone: The Assembly of a Multimodal Scientific Dissociation
11 Tracking the Twilight Zone: The Circulation of a Multimodal Dissociation
Part 5 Image Editors and Moving Images: Technologies of Argumentation
12 Learning from the Era When Science Met Photoshop: Toward an Ethical Rhetoric of the Digital Scientific Image
13 Integrating Moving Images into Scientific Arguments: From Pseudomovies to See Movie 1
14 Assembling Lessons from Assembling Arguments
Bibliography
Index
Series Editor s Preface
In Assembling Arguments, Jonathan Buehl observes that since scientific argument is typically presented both verbally and visually, a multimodal rhetoric of scientific argument is needed to account for and to refine the methods of scientific argumentation. Professor Buehl develops a model for multimodal scientific argument intended to be useful both for philosophers and historians of science and for scientists who are themselves seeking to develop persuasive scientific arguments. The model is derived from and put to the test in an analysis of five cases of multimodal scientific argument: X-ray diffraction crystallography; sea-floor spreading as the mechanism of continental motion; the review and revision process of a study, relevant to climate change, of a concept of twilight zones between clouds and aerosols; the ethical problems of adjusting images for presentation; and the affordances created by new possibilities for digital distribution of moving images as part of scientific persuasion.
The detail, variety, and comprehensiveness of Buehl s close readings in the case studies themselves provide a model for analysis. Assembling Arguments is richly illustrated, both illuminating and exemplifying the principles of argument that Buehl seeks to discover and communicate. More than this, Buehl offers a clearly stated framework, based on rhetorical principles, to guide other such studies and the creation of multimodal scientific arguments.
Thomas W. Benson
Acknowledgments
Assembling Arguments could not have been written without the sustained support of my mentors, colleagues, friends, and family.
While studying at the University of Maryland, I found generous mentors who shaped my thinking and prepared me well for life after graduate school. I will be forever indebted to Jeanne Fahnestock for introducing me to the discipline of rhetoric, for always reading my work so carefully, and for guiding this project from curiosity to dissertation to book. Earlier versions of this work benefited greatly from the attentive reading of Jane Donawerth, Shirley Wilson Logan, and Michael Marcuse; their tutelage continues to shape my approaches to rhetoric, historiography, and academic life.
Since arriving at Ohio State University, I have been buoyed by my colleagues in the Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy program. Cynthia Selfe has been the best New Faculty Mentor a green assistant professor could hope to have. Wendy Hesford, Roger Cherry, and Louie Ulman all provided thorough feedback on sections of the manuscript as it evolved, and I have appreciated the supportive guidance of Nan Johnson, Beverly Moss, Scott DeWitt, Kay Halasek, Dickie Selfe, Eddie Singleton, Brenda Brueggemann, Jim Fredal, and Harvey Graff over the past six years. My graduate seminars at OSU have enrolled keen-minded students who sharpened my own approaches to research methods and visual rhetoric. I am especially grateful for the help of Erika Strandjord, who assisted me in the laborious task of coding data for my study of digital videos.
For years I have relied on the technical expertise of Amy Spears and the staff of the Digital Media Project and on the fiscal acumen of Tiffany Quattlebaum and Nicole Cochran in the Department of English. Both the Department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio State graciously provided funds for subvention and permission fees, for which I am grateful.
I admired the work of Alan Gross long before we became colleagues and collaborators; I ve valued his support for this project and his help throughout the book publishing process. Publishing a first book has seemed less daunting with good friends like Tommy Davis and Bill FitzGerald on parallel journeys.
I am indebted to all those who granted me permission to reprint their images and texts. I am especially grateful to the authors of On the Twilight Zone between Clouds and Aerosols -Ilan Koren, Lorraine Remer, Vanderlei Martins, Yinon Rudich, and the estate of Yoram Kaufman-for allowing me to reprint material from their manuscript drafts. Without the generosity of Lorraine Remer and Ilan Koren-through both sharing their memories and reviewing my scientific explanations-I never could have told the twilight zone s remarkable rhetorical story. I wish them luck and success as they continue their vital research on atmospheric phenomena.
I thank Jim Denton, my acquisitions editor at the University of South Carolina Press, for believing in this project, for bearing with an author completing a first book, and for finding reviewers whose keen comments helped me to refine my arguments as I assembled them. With patience and skill, Bill Adams and the production staff at the press ensured that this book looks like I imagined it would.
I don t know where I would be without the love and guidance of my parents and first mentors, Daniel and Susan Buehl. They inspired in me the love of language and learning that carried me through this project and my life. My sister, Michelle, was my role model long before she entered academic life; I ve followed her footsteps so often because she always knows where to go.
To my dear wife, Gretchen: You have been my adviser, my sounding board, my bersetzer, my critic, my motivator, my motivation, and my biggest fan. Thank you for your love and support. Thank you for your patience. Thank you, for everything.
Part 1
Motives and Methods for a Multimodal Rhetoric of Science
Chapter 1
Scientific Visuals
Rhetorical Potential and Rhetorical Problems
Neither the bare hand nor the understanding left to itself are of much use. It is by instruments and other aids that the work gets done, and these are needed as much by the understanding as by the hand. And just as instruments improve or regulate the movement of our hands, so instruments of the mind provide suggestions or cautions to the understanding.
Francis Bacon, Novum Organon, Book I, Aphorism II
There are several ways to truth; the scientific way is one of these. There are several ways of perceiving a scientific truth, but the simplest is the visual one.
Blodwen Lloyd, Science in Films
In 2006 Geoffrey Chang, an award-winning researcher at the Scripps Research Institute, retracted five papers that described the structures of complex cellular proteins. In the first and most influential of the retracted papers, Chang and his colleagues described the arrangement of the atoms in MsbA, a protein in the bacterium Escherichia coli. MsbA is an ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter-a biochemical mechanism that moves molecules between the layers of a cell s membrane. ABC transporters are proteins of interest because pathogens might use these mechanisms to eliminate antibiotic molecules. Thus, these proteins could be crucial elements in the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria strains.
Chang s breakthrough paper-with its convincing stereoscopic visualizations of MsbA s structure-warranted publication in Science in 2001. (One set of his stereoviews appears in plate 1, following page 148.) * Chang then used the structure as the basis for other work, including determining the structures of MsbA for the pathogens Vibrio cholera (Chang 2003) and Salmonella typhimurium (Reyes and Chang 2005). Unfortunately, the molecular