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The Best Approximation of Reality: Physics and the Rhetoricity of Scientific Methods.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	The Best Approximation of Reality: Physics and the Rhetoricity of Scientific Methods./
Author:	Marquardt, Meg M.
Published:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2022,
Description:	139 p.
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-11, Section: B.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International83-11B.
Subject:	Communication. -
ISBN:	9798438748892

The Best Approximation of Reality: Physics and the Rhetoricity of Scientific Methods.
Marquardt, Meg M.

The Best Approximation of Reality: Physics and the Rhetoricity of Scientific Methods. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2022 - 139 p.

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-11, Section: B.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2022.

This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.

My dissertation examines how physicists get at what cannot be seen, the means and methods by which scientists try to capture the best approximation of reality when that reality is, for whatever reason, out of reach. Though grounded in rhetoric, this project has implications in STS, feminist studies, and, importantly, public understanding of science. While many scientists would agree that the work they do isn't purely objective (Achinstein), beyond mathematical and methodological strategies to corral the subjective, scientific epistemology isn't built to deal with all the problems brought by the quantum revolution. By contrast, rhetoric has built means to understand how subjectivity shapes our world. In my dissertation, I examine four case studies to show how scientific methods are infused with rhetoricity, that methods rely on extra-empirical senses to create new knowledge, that they are embodied, and that they often rely on systemic power relations. By naming the intellectual strategies used by physicists, this project offers new ways to view scientific experimentation as a wholly human endeavour, creating new approaches for how rhetoric studies can research the sciences as well as opening possibilities for physicists to continue to push into the unknown edges of scientific understanding.My dissertation contributes to the field of rhetoric in two main ways. The first is a broadening of what "counts" as rhetoric in science studies. This project focuses on the methods of science, which are often positioned as preinterpretive (Gross) and as existing outside the realm of rhetoric (Aristotle). Expanding on those who have worked to expand rhetoric of science objects of study (Ceccarelli; Graham and Walsh; Jack), this dissertation argues that the methods of science include rhetorical methods and strategies, ones that are discursive (linguistically and mathematically), that are embodied, and that tap into mental faculties beyond the traditional five senses. As an additional broadening, while most rhetoric of science research is focused on biology and public health, my dissertation focuses on physics, a field that has been neglected in rhetoric save some work on expertise and ethos (Miller). In order to argue for a broader view of what counts as rhetoric in scientific knowledge production, the first two chapters use case studies where rhetorical angles have either been cut off or unexplored. These chapters take cues from Karen Barad, who argues that the creation of theories and the practice of experimentation are not only historically contingent but also materially intertwined (Barad 55). The second way my dissertation contributes to rhetoric is through investigating the impacts of what a rhetoricity of scientific methods means. As is evidenced by climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, and the endless contradictory discourse around COVID-19, there is considerable unrest between the scientific institution and the general public. Much of this unrest is ideologically motivated, but my dissertation argues that part of it is a fundamental misunderstanding of how scientific knowledge production happens. Though scientific knowledge production is held up as an ideal of "universalism, disinterestedness, communalism, and organized skepticism" (Johnson and Xenos 114) and though from a young age we are taught that "the" scientific method is a singular, monolithic-like way of viewing the world, the reality is much more complicated. However, since we are not taught to view science as subjective, when some of that subjectiveness slips out from behind the objective veneer, dissonance occurs. The second two body chapters grapple with this dissonance, investigating the ways that scientific knowledge production in physics is built upon patriarchal, Western citation practices and how experimentation is often much more embodied than is normally considered. Taken together, this project moves from specific problems in rhetoric of science to showing how a rhetorical approach can benefit larger society. It paves the way to a better understanding of how the methods of physics -- and science more broadly -- have the ability to create a new type of scientific investigation, reshaping our understanding of reality, not on some impossible ideal of objectivity, but on a reality that puts the human observer at the center.

ISBN: 9798438748892Subjects--Topical Terms:

524709
Communication.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Science and Technology Studies

The Best Approximation of Reality: Physics and the Rhetoricity of Scientific Methods.
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520 $a My dissertation examines how physicists get at what cannot be seen, the means and methods by which scientists try to capture the best approximation of reality when that reality is, for whatever reason, out of reach. Though grounded in rhetoric, this project has implications in STS, feminist studies, and, importantly, public understanding of science. While many scientists would agree that the work they do isn't purely objective (Achinstein), beyond mathematical and methodological strategies to corral the subjective, scientific epistemology isn't built to deal with all the problems brought by the quantum revolution. By contrast, rhetoric has built means to understand how subjectivity shapes our world. In my dissertation, I examine four case studies to show how scientific methods are infused with rhetoricity, that methods rely on extra-empirical senses to create new knowledge, that they are embodied, and that they often rely on systemic power relations. By naming the intellectual strategies used by physicists, this project offers new ways to view scientific experimentation as a wholly human endeavour, creating new approaches for how rhetoric studies can research the sciences as well as opening possibilities for physicists to continue to push into the unknown edges of scientific understanding.My dissertation contributes to the field of rhetoric in two main ways. The first is a broadening of what "counts" as rhetoric in science studies. This project focuses on the methods of science, which are often positioned as preinterpretive (Gross) and as existing outside the realm of rhetoric (Aristotle). Expanding on those who have worked to expand rhetoric of science objects of study (Ceccarelli; Graham and Walsh; Jack), this dissertation argues that the methods of science include rhetorical methods and strategies, ones that are discursive (linguistically and mathematically), that are embodied, and that tap into mental faculties beyond the traditional five senses. As an additional broadening, while most rhetoric of science research is focused on biology and public health, my dissertation focuses on physics, a field that has been neglected in rhetoric save some work on expertise and ethos (Miller). In order to argue for a broader view of what counts as rhetoric in scientific knowledge production, the first two chapters use case studies where rhetorical angles have either been cut off or unexplored. These chapters take cues from Karen Barad, who argues that the creation of theories and the practice of experimentation are not only historically contingent but also materially intertwined (Barad 55). The second way my dissertation contributes to rhetoric is through investigating the impacts of what a rhetoricity of scientific methods means. As is evidenced by climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, and the endless contradictory discourse around COVID-19, there is considerable unrest between the scientific institution and the general public. Much of this unrest is ideologically motivated, but my dissertation argues that part of it is a fundamental misunderstanding of how scientific knowledge production happens. Though scientific knowledge production is held up as an ideal of "universalism, disinterestedness, communalism, and organized skepticism" (Johnson and Xenos 114) and though from a young age we are taught that "the" scientific method is a singular, monolithic-like way of viewing the world, the reality is much more complicated. However, since we are not taught to view science as subjective, when some of that subjectiveness slips out from behind the objective veneer, dissonance occurs. The second two body chapters grapple with this dissonance, investigating the ways that scientific knowledge production in physics is built upon patriarchal, Western citation practices and how experimentation is often much more embodied than is normally considered. Taken together, this project moves from specific problems in rhetoric of science to showing how a rhetorical approach can benefit larger society. It paves the way to a better understanding of how the methods of physics -- and science more broadly -- have the ability to create a new type of scientific investigation, reshaping our understanding of reality, not on some impossible ideal of objectivity, but on a reality that puts the human observer at the center.
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