Theorizing Practice and Practicing Theory: Toward a Constructive Analysis of Scientific Rhetorics

Abstract

While rhetorical studies of science have made significant progress in mapping the discursive dynamics of the sciences, it has only begun to engage meaningfully the question of promoting alternative, constructive discourses of and about science in the postmodern polis. Characterizing science as a complex series of discursive practices, this essay highlights the inescapable symbiosis of technical and political ways of knowing, creating sites for rhetorical critics to offer advisory claims regarding more constructive, democratic public engagements with science in the postmodern age. A brief study of the 1989 cold fusion controversy illustrates this perspective.