Scientific and Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Policy

New Challenges

As twenty-first century unfolds you will face a host of new challenges as a scientific and technical communicator: the presence of increasingly diverse audiences, the proliferation, ownership and marketing of information, the ethical problems presented by developments in science and technology, and the need to balance individual and social responsibilities. You will assume important and unique roles in our evolving "technical society." You will serve as gatekeepers within your profession in determining who has access to information. You will serve as mediators among the interests and concerns of professionals and lay persons. And you will serve as translators of specialist language to and from the language of other specialists and laypersons. These new challenges and unique roles will converge and have the most profound effects in the arena of public policy.

Science and technology will continue exerting extraordinary cultural influence while becoming more specialized. It is likely that most other professions will follow the trend of specialization. Ironically, as professions become progressively specialized, our own expertise and skills, absent constant retraining, progressively lose their value. All of us, scientists and non-scientists alike, will become part of the lay public on an growing number of issues involving science and technology. The situation will be complicated as the public, ourselves included, demand a greater voice in how business is conducted (especially environmentally), how local and national policy priorities are set, and how our tax money is spent. Communicating across the borders separating professions, government agencies and interest-groups will involve something similar to trying to use a language with an incredible number of dialects. We cannot hope to learn all of these dialects but will nonetheless be asked to take positions and make appropriate decisions. But on what basis will our decisions be made? Let's look at an example to see what roles scientific and technical communicators can play.

In the late 1960's the federal government proposed a standard for passive restraints in automobiles. The automatically inflating air bag was promoted as a "technological fix" to traffic deaths and injuries not solved by seat belts. For almost two decades automobile manufactures, insurance representatives, government officials, engineers, scientists and consumer advocates disputed the "facts" concerning air bags. Automobile manufacturers argued that the costs of air bags outweighed the benefits. Consumer groups estimated that as many as 2,000 to 12,000 lives a year could be saved. Experts lined up on both sides: either they questioned the validity of tests using human-like dummies or saw a positive correlation between crash forces and human injuries. For years each side produced "facts" and experts that generated opposing "facts" and experts.

One role for scientific and technical communicators will be to alter the conduct of such a debate. By understanding science and technology as inseparable from their social and rhetorical contexts, the endless procession of experts could have been avoided. Once convinced that overwhelming scientific evidence would not win the day, debaters could have cast their arguments in new ways, perhaps in economic and political terms. In fact, this is what happened. The length of the debate allowed more people to get involved. Ultimately social and political concerns, punctuated by the late 1970's oil crisis, the demise of the United States automotive industry, and foreign manufacturers' initiatives for including air bags in mid-1980's models, rather than scientific evidence settled the debate. The air bag controversy illustrates how scientific and technical communicators could mediate public debates by translating technical issues into social ones and by providing means of communication of that would allow various constituencies to be heard in a timely manner.

A Final Word

The resolution of public policy conflicts on both national and local levels requires a difficult and complex process of negotiation among a public with various degrees of expertise and interest. Some experts fear that increased public participation in science and technology policy will encourage endless personal demands, expectations of risk-free technologies, and increased disagreement, all of which will "gridlock" decision making. Nevertheless, the public has a right to oversee and influence the way its taxes are spent. An unaware public may allow corruption of science and technology like the Defense Department boondoggles of the 1980's. In sum, those managing science and technology are trapped between the ideal of democratic participation and the practical problem of accommodating quite different levels of knowledge and interest.

In the confusion and questions surrounding the local and national politics that effect science and technology policy, where do you fit in? Some of you will become scientists and engineers competing for funding, authority and prestige, some of you will pursue other roles and careers, some of you will become active public participants, others will remain ambivalent bystanders, but all of you are implicated in a common fate. You have an important role to play, especially as a scientific and technical communicator, in the democratic formulation of policy, which calls for knowledge of the policy process. Nationally, disputes over recombinant DNA research, AIDS research, the future of the space program, and international competition show that scientific and technological development continues to outpace the government's ability and mandate to offer comprehensive policies.

Locally, and perhaps most directly, you are affected by the building of highways, airports, power plants and waste disposal facilities. And while all of you will not agree about matters of policy, you can help set standards in which the various and often contradictory skills and ideas you possess lead to quite different goals. Policy decisions regarding science and technology have been cast as winner take all propositions in which opposing interests (the chemical industry versus the government regulators) require that one side succeed at the expense of the other. This type of thinking has been perpetuated by the idea that parties on the opposite side of an issue remain steadfast in their positions. Although communication will not led to consensus, it will lead to providing ways in which different goals can be harmoniously pursued.

Discussion

1. One of the claims of this chapter is that the study and practice of scientific and technical communication often neglects the contexts in which it originates. What other contexts, not listed in this chapter, are important for practitioners and the lay public to know? Why is it important for you, in learning to become a practitioner in a field of study, to know the history of that field? Consider the debate between Boyle and Hobbes presented in this chapter. Why should laboratory experiments not be witnessed by lay persons? Why should scientists not debate their claims in a open public forum? How do you think science would be different if Hobbes' arguments won the day?

2. Compare and contrast the views Thomas Kuhn and Peter Medawar express about the role of scientific and technical writing in textbooks and in scientific articles. How do their claims compare to your experience? How can consumers, yourself included, penetrate the images of science and technology provided in textbooks, news articles and technical documents? Which professions do the best job of following the practices and rules given in textbooks and journals?

3. Who, in the debate between Socrates and Plato and the Sophists was right? Explain. Why should scientists and technologists either embrace, or maintain a distance from, the rhetorical aspects of communication? Can one rightfully claim that all scientific and technical communication is rhetorical? Explain.

4. In the classroom and in textbooks we are often taught that professions adhere to certain standards of conduct and rules of practice. The "scientific method" is one example. Why is there a difference between what scientists should do and what they actually do?

5. How is science and scientific knowledge situated in, or independent of, society? How do you think the state institutions, social order, political climate, public policy, economics and trade influence the profession which you intend to enter? How and why is science different in this regard?

6. In 1919 the New York Times published a series of editorials on the lowly state of the lay public's understanding of contemporary developments in physics; namely, Einstein's work on relativity. Democracy was threatened, according to editorial writers, by the widening intellectual gulf between experts and lay persons. Astrology, mysticism and religious fundamentalism were on the rise in the first quarter of the century. What parallels do you between the arguments, trends and relationships regarding science and the lay public at the turn of the century, and at the end of the century? How is democracy threatened by the gulf between intellectuals and the lay public? Why do scientific and technical communicators have a responsibility to educate the lay public about science and technology?

Exercises

1. In the late 1940s sociologists Gordon Allport and Leo Postman became interested in how rumor is spread. They performed an interesting experiment which allows us to Kuhnian paradigm shift and is easy to replicate, in miniature, in the classroom. Five or six students remove themselves from the rest, waiting outside the room or at least out of earshot. Everyone in the room is given the same photograph or drawing (offered as a slide or individual handouts). Its subject should be a chaotic, confusing and emotionally-charged scene, an accident on a busy street corner, a political rally. Students in the room are given a minute to study the image. Then, one of those outside is allowed to return to the room, but not allowed to see the image. The class describes the image, taking one or two minutes. The second of those outside is allowed to return, the first recounts the description she has heard. And so on. If the experiment operates as Gordon and Postman's did, the description of the image not only changes greatly, many parts of it crystallize around a word or a few words.

2. In a one- to two-page typed, single-spaced memorandum give a definition of one word or term common to two academic disciplines such as (feel free to choose others), "formula", "result", "aggression", "submission", "depression", "migration", "experiment", "theory", "supply", and "value." Explain the similarities and differences in usage. Please provide the etymology, history and specific examples of how the word or term is used in the different disciplines. The etymology and history of the word or term can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, discipline specific dictionaries, books dealing with the history of words and terms, (e.g., Isaac Asimov's Words of Science and the History Behind Them, 1959) textbooks, and scholarly journals about linguistics. You may choose examples of how the word or term is used from any source or combination of sources. After comparing and contrasting how the word or term is used, consider the following questions in the recommendations or conclusion section:

Can the word or term be used to explain or describe a similar phenomenon in different disciplines? For example, is the word "significant" used in the same way to describe experimental results in physics and experimental results in social psychology? How did these similarities and differences develop? Would the technically specific use of the term create confusion for lay audiences?

3. In a one- to two-page memorandum take an event or phenomena that is normally explained by one academic discipline (this only a partial list),

and explain it in the concepts, terms and theories of another discipline with which you are familiar. You need to redescribe the phenomena so that it might be discussed in the language of the second discipline. In providing your analysis document any resistance you meet along the way in making the translation between the two disciplines. Do think the practitioners of the first discipline would believe your analysis reveals something that interests them? How are your own ideas influenced as a result? Do you resist having ideas or concepts in which you might believe explained in another discipline?

4. In a one- to two-page memorandum give an historical account of the development of the academic discipline in which you are now enrolled, or in which you intend enrolling. There are two parts to this assignment. First, by informally interviewing two or three instructors (of any academic rank), find out what they know about the history of the discipline or the field in which they perform research. Prepare a list of questions which you might ask. For example:

Work Cited and Consulted

Allport, Gordon W. and Postman, Leo. The Psychology of Rumor. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1947.

Bazerman, Charles. Shaping Written Knowledge. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.

Boyd, Richard, Philip Gasper and J.D. Trout. The Philosophy of Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991.

Evered, David & Maeve O'Connor eds. Communicating Science to the Public. Chichester, UK: John Wiley, 1987.

Fuchs, Stephan. The Professional Quest for Truth: A Social Theory of Knowldge. Albany: SUNY Press, 1992.

Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

Martino, Joseph P. Science Funding: Politics and Porkbarrel. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1992.

Merton, Robert. The Sociology of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

Mulkay, Michael and G. Nigel Gilbert "Putting Philosophy to Work: Karl Popper's Influence on Scientific Practice" Philosophy of Social Science Vol. 11 (1981), 389-407.

Nelkin, Dorothy. (ed.) Controversy: Politics of Technical Decisions. 2nd. ed. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984.

Shapin, Steven and Simon Schaffer. The Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

Scientific and Technical Communication in Context
Chapter 1: Part 3

James H. Collier with David M. Toomey

Book Contents

Chapter 1: Part 3

Scientific and Technical Communication in Context Chapter 1: Part 3

James H. Collier with David M. Toomey

Book Contents

Chapter 1: Part 3

Scientific and Technical Communication in Context
Chapter 1: Part 3