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Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Owning A Virus: The Rhetoric Of Scientific Discovery Accounts, Carol Reeves
Owning A Virus: The Rhetoric Of Scientific Discovery Accounts, Carol Reeves
Carol Reeves
No Abstract Available
"I Knew There Was Something Wrong With That Paper": Scientific Rhetorical Styles And Scientific Misunderstandings, Carol Reeves
"I Knew There Was Something Wrong With That Paper": Scientific Rhetorical Styles And Scientific Misunderstandings, Carol Reeves
Carol Reeves
This selection unpacks scientific prose and claim substantiation for Nobel Prize winner, Stan Prusiner, in the transmissible spongiform encephlopathies field (i.e., mad cow disease). Applying linguistic strategies such as M. A. K. Halliday's "favorite clause type," the author examines argumentative strategies in dense scientific prose both in bold and cautious rhetorical styles and invented lexical changes in new scientific development.
Visual Rhetoric And The Promotion Of Scientific Ideas: The Strange Case Of The Prion, Carol Reeves
Visual Rhetoric And The Promotion Of Scientific Ideas: The Strange Case Of The Prion, Carol Reeves
Carol Reeves
In the field that investigates infectious brain diseases such as mad cow disease, the verbal and visual packaging of scientific visuals associated with identifying the agent, prion, its processes, and structure served the community ritual of establishing belief in a highly unorthodox phenomenon. Visual promotion fed into cultural expectations of single agents and simple processes, even though the actual agency and disease process have proven highly complex and perhaps unknowable.
An Orthodox Heresy: Scientific Rhetoric And The Science Of Prions., Carol Reeves
An Orthodox Heresy: Scientific Rhetoric And The Science Of Prions., Carol Reeves
Carol Reeves
A significant theoretical shift in the research community examining a class of terminal, infectious neurological disorders that includes Mad Cow Disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and Kuru was assisted by rhetorical production. The local rhetoric of one laboratory, that of Professor Stanley B. Prusiner, involved first situating an heretical hypothesis within the framework of the orthodox narrative and then audaciously promoting that heresy. Another aspect of rhetorical production in this case involved situating a new language associated with the heretical hypothesis. To promote their new lexicon, the Prusiner team evoked orthodox values of consistency, efficiency, and collective ratification. Eventually, what was once …
Rhetoric And The Aids Virus Hunt, Carol Reeves
Rhetoric And The Aids Virus Hunt, Carol Reeves
Carol Reeves
By comparing the papers produced by the laboratory teams of Robert Gallo and Jean Luc Montagnier during the AIDS virus hunt, we have an opportunity to discern the fine line between a bold, explicit rhetoric that may convince as well as offend and a bald, reserved rhetoric that may actually conceal important implications. Going too far in either direction may create misunderstandings and ethical dilemmas as will be demonstrated in a textual analysis deepened by an exploration of historical context and interviews with key participants. Since a public health crisis calls upon communication that thwarts misunderstandings, scientists should understand the …
Establishing The Phenomenon: The Rhetoric Of Early Research Reports On Aids, Carol Reeves
Establishing The Phenomenon: The Rhetoric Of Early Research Reports On Aids, Carol Reeves
Carol Reeves
In the first three medical reports on AIDS which were published in 1981 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the writers' primary rhetorical agenda was to argue that a new medical discovery had been made. A secondary agenda was to offer etiological explanations for the new problem. To establish the new disease entity as deserving serious attention, the writers built a sense of mystery by confronting established medical knowledge about immunodeficiency and emphasizing the inability of modern medicine to diagnose and treat the problem. When they explained the phenomenon in etiological terms, rather than confronting the disciplinary matrix, the …
Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation, Stuart Glennan
Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation, Stuart Glennan
Stuart Glennan
Philosophers of science typically associate the causal-mechanical view of scientific explanation with the work of Railton and Salmon. In this paper I shall argue that the defects of this view arise from an inadequate analysis of the concept of mechanism. I contrast Salmon's account of mechanisms in terms of the causal nexus with my own account of mechanisms, in which mechanisms are viewed as complex systems. After describing these two concepts of mechanism, I show how the complex-systems approach avoids certain objections to Salmon's account of causal-mechanical explanation. I conclude by discussing how mechanistic explanations can provide understanding by unification.
Decolonisation As Peacemaking: Applying Just War Theory To The Canadian Context, Sam Grey
Decolonisation As Peacemaking: Applying Just War Theory To The Canadian Context, Sam Grey
Sam Grey
For decades now, Canada has been seen as a global exemplar of peacemaking and peacekeeping, yet the troubled relationship between its state and the Indigenous peoples within its borders does little to support this image. There is, in fact, a strong case to be made that the ongoing crisis of Indigenous–settler state relations in Canada is best understood as a protracted war; or more succinctly, as a failure to achieve peace following the initial violence of conquest and colonisation. Accordingly, it makes sense to apply just war theory — a doctrine of military ethics — to the issue. Grounded in …
In The Form Of A Longhouse: Haudenosaunee Political Philosophy And Social Contract Theory, Sam Grey
In The Form Of A Longhouse: Haudenosaunee Political Philosophy And Social Contract Theory, Sam Grey
Sam Grey
This essay presents the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (sometimes referred to as the Iroquois League or Five Nations) as part of an alternative social contract theory, contrasting the social and political institutions and norms of the Five Nations with those proposed by Enlightenment-era philosophers. Although the oral history of the Haudenosaunee describes a Hobbesian ‘state of nature’ prior to the founding of the Confederacy, the Five Nations entered into, and constantly renewed, a substantially different ‘social contract’ than that theorized by Hobbes, Rousseau, or Locke. Because these differences reveal a unique understanding of human nature and potential, undergirded by distinctly Haudenosaunee political …
Afflicting The Comfortable: An Assessment Of The Stasis In International Bioethical Discourse, Sam Grey
Afflicting The Comfortable: An Assessment Of The Stasis In International Bioethical Discourse, Sam Grey
Sam Grey
Despite decades of clinical research being carried out in the 'developing' world, neither the socio-political and economic context of the global South, nor the nature and historical trajectory of global inequality have played a substantive role in determining the nature and extent of North-to-South bioethical obligations. Instead, context has been used to vacate obligation, shut out theories of justice, and collapse the “four principles' of bioethics” – sacrosanct in the 'developed’ world - into a singular, non-negotiable focus on autonomy as a procedurally-defined right. Proponents of a minimum-standards system of international clinical research conflate scientific, statistical, economic, and ethical issues, …
In Harm's Way: Justification, Excuse, And Civilian Safety In Just War Theory, Sam Grey
In Harm's Way: Justification, Excuse, And Civilian Safety In Just War Theory, Sam Grey
Sam Grey
Just War Theory asserts that armed conflict can be fought in a way that safeguards moral and legal norms while responding to pragmatic/military imperatives. One of the ways in which it seeks to safeguard justice is through specific provisions for the immunity of, and due care for, the vulnerable and innocent. Unfortunately, two doctrines within Just War Theory – the Doctrine of Double Effect and the Doctrine of Supreme Emergency – suspend or vacate these provisions. The net effect is to render justifications inaccessible, leaving only excuses, the use of which establishes that no one is truly accountable, no meaningful …
The Presence Of Absence Of Personal Identity: Everyday Conditions Of Practicing Law, Matilda Arvidsson
The Presence Of Absence Of Personal Identity: Everyday Conditions Of Practicing Law, Matilda Arvidsson
Dr Matilda Arvidsson
No abstract provided.
Tattoos On Our Digital Skin: Anonymity, Privacy, And Accountability In Cyberspace, Sam Grey
Tattoos On Our Digital Skin: Anonymity, Privacy, And Accountability In Cyberspace, Sam Grey
Sam Grey
While it may be oddly flattering that Chapters, Amazon or HMV knew you would like the new Johnny Cash compilation album, you may be less than thrilled to discover that they also knew about your prescription drug addiction, your crabs, your bankruptcy, or your having skipped out on the rent one month back in 1993. When you add the possibility of your favourite e-retailer sharing your personal information- for a profit- to the frank probability of their having known it in the first place, what you initially found flattering may begin to appear more offensive and ominous. Simply put, there …