Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Toscano, Aaron, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-083: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • ENGL 2116 sec. 083 Major Assignments (Summer 2020)
      • Final Portfolio Requirements
      • Oral Presentations
    • June 11th: Continue with I, Robot
    • June 15th: Ethics and Perspective Discussion
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • June 16th: More on Ethics
    • June 1st: Effective Documents for Users
    • June 2nd: Final Project and Research Discussion
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters Better
      • Research
    • June 3rd: Technology in a Social Context
    • June 8th: Information Design and Visuals
    • June 9th: Proposals, Marketing, and Rhetoric
    • May 18th: Introduction to the course
    • May 19th: Critical Technological Awareness
    • May 20th: Audience, Purpose, and General Introduction
    • May 21st: Résumé Stuff
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • May 25th: More Resume Stuff
    • May 26th: Plain Language and Prose Revision
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • May 27th: More on Plain Language
    • May 28th: Review Prose Revision
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • February 3rd: I’m in Love with the Shape of You(r Sentences)
    • January 20th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 27th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Spring 2021)
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 4750-090 & ENGL 5050-092 Video Games & Culture
    • Assignments for Video Games & Culture
    • August 25th: Introduction to the Course
    • November 10th: Aggression & Addiction
    • November 3rd: Moral Panics and Health Risks
    • October 13th: Narrative, ludology, f(r)iction
    • October 20th: Serious Games
    • October 27: Risky Business?
    • October 6th: Hyperreality
    • September 1st: History of Video Games
    • September 22nd: Video Game Aesthetics
    • September 29th: (sub)Cultures and Video Games
    • September 8th: Defining Video Games and Critical Theory Introduction
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 13th: Umberto Eco & Jean Baudrillard
    • April 20th: Moving Forward on Theory
    • April 27th: Last Day of Class
    • April 6th: Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition
      • What is Postmodernism?
    • February 10th: St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
      • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • February 17th: Knoblauch on Magical and Ontological Rhetoric
    • February 24th: Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method
    • February 3rd: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 and 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • January 13th: Introduction to Class
    • January 27th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 16th: Friedrich Nietzsche
    • March 23rd: Mythologies and Meaning of Meaning (part 2)
    • March 30th: Derrida’s (refusal to have) Positions
    • March 9th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • LBST 2212-124, 125, 126, & 127
    • August 21st: Introduction to Class
    • August 23rd: Humanistic Approach to Science Fiction
    • August 26th: Robots and Zombies
    • August 28th: Futurism, an Introduction
    • August 30th: R. A. Lafferty “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965)
    • December 2nd: Technological Augmentation
    • December 4th: Posthumanism
    • November 11th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2)
    • November 13th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 2 con’t)
    • November 18th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 1)
      • More Questions than Answers
    • November 1st: Games Reality Plays (part II)
    • November 20th: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Part 2)
    • November 6th: Salt Fish Girl (Week 1)
    • October 14th: More Autonomous Fun
    • October 16th: Autonomous Conclusion
    • October 21st: Sci Fi in the Domestic Sphere
    • October 23rd: Social Aphasia
    • October 25th: Dust in the Wind
    • October 28th: Gender Liminality and Roles
    • October 2nd: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • October 30th: Games Reality Plays (part I)
    • October 9th: Approaching Autonomous
      • Analyzing Prose in Autonomous
    • September 11th: The Time Machine
    • September 16th: The Alien Other
    • September 18th: Post-apocalyptic Worlds
    • September 20th: Dystopian Visions
    • September 23rd: World’s Beyond
    • September 25th: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • September 30th: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    • September 4th: Science Fiction and Social Breakdown
      • More on Ellison
      • More on Forster
    • September 9th: The Time Machine
  • LBST 2213/HTAS 2100: Science, Technology, and Society
    • December 10th: Violence in Video Games
    • December 15th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • December 1st: COVID-19 facial covering rhetoric
    • December 3rd: COVID-19 Transmission and Pandemics
    • December 8th: 500-word Essay
    • November 10th: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 12th: Frankenstein (1818) Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 17th: Frankenstein (1818) Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 19th: Frankenstein (1818) Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 3rd: Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 1-17
    • November 5th: Planet of the Apes (1964) Ch. 18-26
    • October 13th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • October 15th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • October 1st: The Golem at Large Introduction & Ch. 1
    • October 22nd: The Time Machine
    • October 29th: H.G. Wells and Adaptations
    • October 6th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology) Ch. 2
    • October 8th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 3 & 4
    • September 10th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • September 15th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • September 17th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • September 22nd: Collins & Pinch Ch. 5 & 6
    • September 24th: Collins & Pinch Ch. 7 & Conclusion
    • September 29th: Test 1
    • September 8th: Introduction to Class
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
  • Science Fiction in American Culture (Summer I–2020)
    • Assignments for Science Fiction in American Culture
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • June 10th: Interstellar and Exploration themes
    • June 11th: Bicentennial Man
    • June 15th: I’m Only Human…Or am I?
    • June 16th: Wall-E and Environment
    • June 17th: Wall-E (2008) and Technology
    • June 18th: Interactivity in Video Games
    • June 1st: Firefly (2002) and Myth
    • June 2nd: “Johnny Mnemonic”
    • June 3rd: “New Rose Hotel”
    • June 4th: “Burning Chrome”
    • June 8th: Conformity and Monotony
    • June 9th: Cultural Constructions of Beauty
    • May 18th: Introduction to Class
    • May 19th: American Culture, an Introduction
    • May 20th: The Matrix
    • May 21st: Gender and Science Fiction
    • May 25th: Goals for I, Robot
    • May 26th: Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
    • May 27th: Hackers and Slackers
    • May 30th: Inception
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 280F
Phone: 704.687.0613
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
LBST 2213/HTAS 2100: Science, Technology, and Society » September 17th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4

September 17th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4

Don’t forget to post your Canvas response by 11:00 pm tomorrow! (9/18)
AND CHECK THAT IT POSTED PROPERLY!

Ch. 3: The Sun in a Test Tube: The Story of Cold Fusion

Take away 3 things

  1. Scientific credit is competitive. Under the guise of objectivity, it shouldn’t matter who discovers what—observation should be neutral. However, status in one’s field is powerful.
  2. Chemists tend to favor how the field of chemistry (therefore, other chemists) establishes knowledge, and physicists tend to favor how the field of physics establishes knowledge.
  3. The reasons behind not replicating another scientist’s experiments could depend on perspective: If one doesn’t replicate the experiment, they could believe the original results are wrong; on the other hand, those originally doing the experiment could believe those replicating their experiment failed to follow their guidelines.
    • Why else might a chemist not follow a physicist’s model of experiment?

Interesting thought: What is energy? What energy do you use daily, and where does that energy come from? Just contemplate this for a moment or two.


Besides knowing what happened (or didn’t) related to cold fusion, it’s also important to consider why scientists even put forth the effort to conduct experiments to find new sources of energy. This might seem obvious, but it’s an often overlooked assumption: Science doesn’t spring from scientists doing experiments in isolation. There is usually a social demand driving research. That “demand” could be hegemonic and favor powerful groups’ agendas, but it still conforms to ideology. Nuclear fusion (cold or hot) is fusing hydrogen atoms into helium, which releases tons of energy. Why would having cold fusion technology—an energy source that, in theory, gives off more energy than it uses—be of value to our world? What commodities seem to literally “drive” the engines of the world?

Key Quotations for Discussion

  • p. 59: Exciting the public, “It was ‘science by press conference’ as scientists queued up to announce their latest findings to the media.”
  • Jones’s motivation and, perhaps, belief that cold fusion was theoretically possible stemmed from his work with the “Los Alamos particle accelerator. [He and his team] found far more evidence of such fusions than theory would have led them to expect.”
    • Unfortunately, that’s not the same as finding a new, commercially viable energy source.
  • p. 63-64: The two Utah teams were in competition to discover a viable cold fusion process. “In view of the obvious commercial payoff…it meant that a certain amount of rivalry and suspicion arose between the two groups.”
  • p. 65: Guilt by association—Jones wasn’t claiming to have discovered a revolutionary new source of energy. However, he was grouped with Pons and Fleischmann and “has been inevitably subject to the same suspicions.”
  • p. 66: “Though fusion researchers, well-used to spectacular claims, and with their own billion-dollar research programs to protect, were incredulous, other scientists were more willing to take their work seriously.
    • We’ll come back to this below when we talk about funding.
  • p. 69: Pons and Fleischmann believed failure to replicate their experiments was due to the fact that “many cells were being set up with incorrect parameters and dimensions.”

The Politics of Science

Let’s consider the communication and vetting process of the cold fusion “discovery.” Think about the many actors–not in the spotlight–who weighed in on the validity of  Pons and Fleischmann’s findings. I’m putting this under “politics” because that’s the best word for saying “the social rules governing the system and providing resources and/or credit.”

Think about the phrase “office politics.” What does that mean? Well, in any office, there are employee expectations, procedures, and authority concerns. Dress codes, working late expectations, communication preferences, etc. have written and unwritten rules. More importantly, whose voice(s) is respected and even who should or shouldn’t speak are aspects of political power (or lack thereof) in an office. Another way to think of “politics” is how and why and by whom are resources divided.

If you’re interested on reading the differences between two different workplaces, check out these different offices and consider the office politics based on the job ads.

Otherwise…back to the reading!

  • Historical discussion
    • Fritz Paneth and Kurt Peters wanted to produce more helium in the 1920s for “German industry because the USA…refused to sell helium to Germany after [WWI].”
    • International politics plays a role in science and technoogy.
  • p. 60: Authorities in the field: “An MIT group claimed…”; “a prestigious California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) group reported…”; “and finally a Cal Tech theorist pronounced that cold fusion was extremely improbable theoretically…”
    • What do all three statements have in common? All three are scientific authorities in the field who claim Pons and Fleischmann’s results are suspect or delusional.
    • Such statements carry weight in the scientific community and, most likely, for journalists and the public.
    • Without knowing the scientific details, those authorities are able to persuade the public that Pons and Fleischmann didn’t find what they claimed to find–cold fusion.
  • p. 66: “the levels of neutrons produced should have been more than enough to kill Pons and Fleischmann and anyone else” nearby.
  • p. 72: “Steve Koonin and Mike Nauenberg…discovered errors which increased the rate of deuterium;” however, “fusion in palladium in the amount needed to produce excess heat is extremely unlikely.”
  • p. 73: because the experiments weren’t decisive or the results weren’t accepted, the “standard theory” dominated “and none of the alternative theories gained widespread acceptance.”
  • p. 74: Pons and Fleischmann’s claims “tread upon the toes of the nuclear physicists and fusion physicists who had already laid claim to the area.”
  • p. 69: Pons and Fleischmann believed failure to replicate their experiments was due to the fact that “many cells were being set up with incorrect parameters and dimensions.”
  • p. 66: One’s discipline guided whether or not one believed the experiments. “Pons and Fleischmann have fared better with their colleagues in chemistry where, after all, they were acknowledged experts.”

Cold Fusion might have been discredited, but the finding of excess heat measurements seems to have been lost as valuable knowledge. Pons & Fleischmann published a paper on calorimetry (heat measurements) and not on nuclear measurements (p. 77). Unfortunately, physicists were excited initially by the claims, and they were interested in the nuclear reactions (not) taking place. According to Collins & Pinch, that “left the excess heat measurements as mere anomalies” (p. 77), so physicists weren’t as interested in those findings. Early framing of the scientific discussion, as with any discussion, guides future discussions. It’s very difficult to change the meaning of experiments when a rhetorical approach dominates.

Funding Motivation

I’m asking you to think critically about scientists motivated by funding. There’s a view that scientists are trumping up claims about climate change in order to get funding. While we might be able to find instances where that was a motivation for scientists studying a variety of sciences, if a large portion of scientists (more than 5% I’ll say with no statistical accuracy) did such a thing, there would be very little “real” science. Think of the medical procedures that would fail; the microwaves that would blow up; the airplanes that would fall from the sky. Dismissing scientific research because you want to believe the scientists are out for money is irresponsible and intellectually dull. Fake science doesn’t last very long as the above Cold Fusion case study shows.

Collins & Pinch mention something about possible funding worries of physicists. Don’t assume legitimate worries are nefarious motives for scientists who want to get all the grants and exclude others from the funding sources. Collins & Pinch state that the fusion physicists rejection was not “merely a matter of wanting to maintain billion-dollar investments (although with the Department of Energy threatening to transfer hot fusion funding to cold fusion research, there was a direct threat to their interests)” (p. 74). Sure, transferring funding from hot to cold fusion would have affected the research labs of many physicists. The “self-interests” of scientists are motivated by their research goals, and, as experts, they’re probably the best ones to explain the value of their work. Rethink the situation as they’re motivated for scientific discovery, which requires money to conduct. They’re not just pocketing it and going to Vegas (even if that might have happened once or twice).

Where are they today?

  • Martin Fleischmann
  • Stanley Pons (Born in Valdese, NC!)
  • Steven E. Jones

Ch. 4: The Germs of Dissent: Louis Pasteur and the Origins of Life

Take away 3 things from Pasteur-Pouchet Debate

  1. Scientific Authority stacked in favor of Pasteur
    1. The Académie des Sciences, the official French body adjudicating scientific disputes, had two commissions made up of pro-Pasteur/anti-Spontaneous Generation members.
    2. Consider this a government peer-review process.
  2. Erroneously, they also wanted to dismiss Félix-Archimède Pouchet and the idea of Spontaneous Generation because they felt it would strike the final blow to Darwinism.
    1. Of course, this is a misreading of Darwin and Evolution, a science in its infancy in 1864.
    2. Spontaneous generation doesn’t have to be the key to evolution, and it certainly didn’t debunk Darwin’s theory of decent through natural selection.
  3. p. 85: “Pasteur was so committed in his opposition to spontaneous generation that he preferred to believe there was some unknown flaw in his work than to publish the results.”
    1. He couldn’t prove what the flaw was, but he was committed to the belief that life doesn’t generate spontaneously from nothing.
    2. Although Louis Pasteur was correct, he couldn’t prove it through a decisive experiment or point to the particular flaw.

Key quotations

  • p. 79: The Pasteur-Pouchet debate to determine whether or not spontaneous generation existed “was a controversial issue, especially in nineteenth-century France because it touched upon deeply rooted religious and political sensibilities.”
    *Collins & Pinch discuss the religious issue surrounding evolution, but they don’t explicitly identify the political issue. They mean the politics of the French scientific community. The governing authority set up how science was vetted, and, in this case, the vetting process favored Pasteur and was “unsympathetic” to Pouchet.
  • p. 80: “As in so many other scientific controversies, it was neither facts nor reason, but death and weight of numbers that defeated the minority view; facts and reasons, as always, were ambiguous.”
    *Ambiguity—“because you know sometimes words have two meanings” Led Zeppelin
  • p. 81: “[I]n the nineteenth century the techniques for determining what was sterile and what was living were being established.” Therefore, it wasn’t universally accepted what constituted a sterile environment.
    • In fact, what does constitute a sterile environment? Which of the following is the most sterile environment? Salad bar, hospital, refrigerator, keyboard on a library computer, cat, recently washed dishes…
  • p. 83: Interpretations of Spontaneous Generation Experiments table “allowed Pasteur virtually to define all air that gave rise to life in the flasks as contaminated.”
  • p. 86: Pasteur’s “20 flasks exposed to air at 2000 metres on a glacier in the French Alps [had] only one affected.” Pouchet’s eight flasks all were contaminated, and “he had used a heated file instead of pincers to open the flasks.”
    What does Pasteur get to say about that?
  • p. 87: “By accident or design, all members of the commission were unsympathetic to Pouchet’s ideas and some announced their conclusion before examining the entries.”
    “The second commission too was composed of members whose view were known to be strongly and uniformly opposed to those of Pouchet.”
  • p. 88: Modern commentators…have suggested that Pouchet might have been successful if he had stayed the course—albeit for the wrong reasons!”
  • p. 89: “It was thought at the time that Darwinism rested upon the idea of spontaneous generation….Pasteur, then, was taken to have dealt a final blow to the theory of evolution with the same stroke as he struck down the spontaneous generation of life.”
    *Is it any surprise that the French Académie des Sciences was opposed to the theory proposed by Darwin and Alfred Wallace, both British scientists (or naturalists)?

Pasteur-Pouchet Debate Speculation

Experimental Controls: Yeast vs. Hay Infusions

It seems Collins & Pinch, when initially describing Pouchet’s Pyrenean experiment (p.86), held out that he used hay infusions as the “nutritive medium” as well as a heated file to open the flasks (p. 88). It’s quite possible the heated file had nothing to do with the contamination Pouchet found. Instead, “[i]t was not until 1876 that it was discovered that hay infusions support a spore that is not easily killed by boiling” (p. 88). Pasteur used yeast as the “nutritive medium” that was sterilized, and he may or may not have conducted the experiment with hay infusions.

Had he used hay infusions and found putrescence, how might he conclude? Would he throw up his hands and say, “yes, Pouchet, you are correct”? How would he deal with this anomaly? Just topics to consider for further thought.

Pasteur’s Brilliance

In order to appreciate Louis Pasteur’s brilliance,* we need to recognize his cutting-edge science in context. Today, we understand germs, microbes, bacteria, viruses, and how they’re spread. Pasteur had to convince the scientific community and the public that invisible microbes were responsible for infections and many diseases. He’s best known for pasteurization, which means we get wine and milk prepared in such a way to stop bacterial contamination. The knowledge of microscopic organisms–not observable by the naked eye–is pretty amazing for a time period (mid-to-late 19th Century) where average citizens wouldn’t be learning these facts in schools the way we learn them today.

The American Civil War had more casualties because of disease than wounds from battle or being killed in battle (for an analysis on Union Army deaths, see Gilchrist, Michael. “Disease & Infection in the American Civil War.” The American Biology Teacher, 60.4 [Apr., 1998]: pp. 258-262). A major reason was because of the non-sterile, dirty environment of field hospitals and poor sanitation (Gilchrist 259). The medical community wasn’t aware of the need for sterile environments, so patients often died from surgery with unclean instruments than from the issues that they went to the hospital to get treated.

*Although Pasteur wasn’t the first to propose germ theory (c.f. Agostino Bassi), he certainly did plenty of work in the field and helped bring new science and technology to the world, making humans safer, healthier, and disease resistant.

Question for Class

It’s not surprising that the federal government has a role in science and technology. One goal of General Education (and LBST courses specifically) is to consider “What is” vs “What should be.” I have four questions for us:

  • What is the Government’s role in science?
    • What should be the Government’s role in science?
  • What is the Government’s role in technology?
    • What should be the Government’s role in technology?

Basically, when we discuss “what is,” we’re describing the contemporary situation. When we discuss “what should be,” we’re making arguments for (or against) certain policies based on sound, logical evidence and reasoning.

Many of you are probably aware of President Trump’s gag order on federal agencies (from a few years back) that bans them from communicating directly with non-governmental entities. How is that similar to The Academie des Sciences in the Pasteur-Pouchet debate?

Next Class

Keep up with the reading Ch. 5 & 6 for Tuesday, 9/22. Also, your Canvas post is up and ready, so post! After 11:00 pm on Friday, 9/18, you won’t be able to post. If you haven’t set that weekly reminder, do so now.

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