Understanding Scientific Prose

Rhetoric of the Human Sciences

by Jack Selzer (Editor)

Examining science as a rhetorical enterprise, this book seizes upon one scientific essay—"The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian 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 "Spandrels" article is both serious science and vivid prose. Applying methods inspired by Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Ferdinand de Saussure, and others, the contributors employ a range of interpretive strategies. Stephen Jay Gould adds his own comments, and the full text of the essay "Spandrels" is reproduced as an appendix. Applying methods inspired by Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Ferdinand de Saussure, and others, the contributors employ a range of interpretive strategies. Stephen Jay Gould adds his own comments, and the full text of the essay "Spandrels" is reproduced as an appendix.

408 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 1993