simplicity in science and its publics - CiteSeerX

Science as Culture, Volume 9, Number 3, 2000

SI M PLI CI T Y I N SCI EN CE AN D I T S PU BLI CS REINER GRUNDMANN AND JEAN-PIERRE CAVAILLEÂ

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It seems to be a widely held belief that there is a historical change occurring in the relationship between science and its public (Gibbons et al., 1994). According to the modernist `canonical’ model, science was leading a life of its own, sheltered from the exigencies of public life and accountability (as expressed, for example, by BenDavid, 1971). This was thought to be a precondition for preventing reliable knowledge from being compromised by public concerns. Before the advent of modern science proper, public concerns `could in¯ uence not only the direction of scienti® c work but also, at times, the content of scienti® c knowledge’ (Shapin, 1990, p. 991). Generally, the assumption is that it is only recently, with shrinking budgets and funding pressures, that scientists have tried to address an audience broader than their peers. Before that, a high level of funding for science was taken for granted. The legitimation of science derived from its supposed utility, i.e. from pure science’ s ultimate delivery of applied science, technologies and economic bene® ts: Ìn a democratic society, the state was justi® ed in spending public money on these grounds and on no others’ (Shapin, 1990, p. 1004).1 It seems that in the recent past, scientists have come to take pains to convince funding agencies of the utility of their work: they popularize their ® ndings in order to maintain public funding or to attract private ® nancial sources (Guston and Keniston, 1994). ‘PU BLIC U N DERST AN DI N G OF SCI EN CE’

The literature on `Public Understanding of Science’ addresses the difference between scienti® c claims and their public representation in the media, and the problems arising from this difference. Sometimes scientists themselves are seen as popularizing, even distorting, their ® ndings in order to get public attention. One part of this literature

Address correspondence to: Reiner Grundmann, Aston University, Aston Business School, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK, tel.: 1 44± 121± 359 3611 ext. 5250; e-mail: [email protected] ISSN 0950-5431 print/ISSN 1470-1189 online/00/030353± 37 Ó

2000 Process Press

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assumes that scientists use a different rhetoric to communicate with the public than they use with their peers. However, another strand (e.g. Irwin and Wynne, 1996; Hilgartner, 1990; for a general overview see Lewenstein, 1995) takes a different view, which we will draw upon.2 Drawing on these accounts, we try, ® rst, to challenge the assumption that scientists have only recently begun to address broader audiences. Second, we call into question the assumption that scientists make simpli® cations only for purposes of public communication. We focus on the relationship between the scientist, the public (academic and lay) and political power. We identify a double intrinsic relation that exists between the logic of scienti® c discovery and the attempt to address and persuade (multiple) audiences. Processes of framing (Goffman, 1974) are highly relevant in this regard. Regarding the ® rst relationship, we argue that didactic and persuasive elements are part and parcel of scientists’ presentations, not added on later in order to address a lay audience. Regarding the second intrinsic relationship, we look at visual and rhetorical strategies and the multiple audiences which are to be addressed. As we shall show, lay audiences have played an important part, but just how important they have been is a matter of historical change. Scientists ® nd themselves in a complex relationship with two types of public: expert colleagues, and that part of the educated public interested in science or in the scienti® c explanation of speci® c phenomena (Whitley, 1985). In particular, we examine the roles of simpli® cation and graphical representation. Both raise important questions about the nature of scienti® c work, about `proper science’ , its `popularization’ and the legitimation of science. We want to demonstrate not only that in this double reference we witness strategies of communication, but also that through this complex, dif® cult and often contradictory negotiation between the two audiences (which are audiences of reception and legitimation), science is created: in other words, it acquires not only a rhetorical but also an heuristic role. The purpose of this exercise is to contribute to a transhistorical investigation of the changing relationships between science, the public, and politics during the last four centuries. Here we limit ourselves to two examples taken from the 17th and 20th centuries (other examples can be found in Blanpied and Holton, 1976; Buc-

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chi, 1998; Goodell, 1977; Lewenstein, 1995; Shinn and Whitley, 1985). As these examples show, it could well be that the assumptions of the canonical model are limited to one historical period (19th and early 20th century); and further, that simpli® cation lies at the heart of the scienti® c enterprise.

Trans-historical comparison We will present two cases from different historical periods and from two different ® elds of knowledge. One is from the 17th century, the other from the 20th century; the ® rst from the ® eld of philosophy, the second from (natural) science. More precisely, the ® rst deals with the science and philosophy of ReneÂ Descartes, the second with the branch of atmospheric science specializing in the ozone layer. As the case of Descartes shows, in the 17th century public audiences assumed an important role for scienti® c authors. Moreover, in the 17th century no special rhetoric was necessary in order to communicate with the public (Gross, 1990; Gus® eld, 1976). Theoretical development cannot be separated from rhetoric in a meaningful way; there is an inner bond that unites both. This is what we call the ® rst intrinsic relationship: modern science uses a speci® c rhetoric connected to its attempt to reach and convince multiple audiences. We ® nd very much the same rhetoric in the example from current environmental and health sciences. Here, scientists present their ® ndings in scienti® c and public settings where they use basically the same arguments. It commonly occurs that they present these arguments with the help of graphical representations, and that they try to simplify their arguments, employing metaphors and appropriate rhetorics (Bazerman, 1988; Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984; Lenoir, 1998; Lynch and Woolgar, 1990; Myers, 1990; Star, 1983; Woolgar, 1981; Pang, 1998; Latour, 1990; Gugerli, 1998; Schaffer, 1983; Beer, 1983; Young, 1985; Gross, 1990; Gus® eld, 1976). In choosing the atmospheric sciences, we seek to continue a thread started by those sociologists and historians of science who have taken an interest in the use of literary devices within science. We thus argue that the pressure on scientists in recent times to explain the substance and relevance of their work to a broader public is nothing alien to them. What is more, they have been practising this ever since modern science came into existence. To be sure,

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there are variations; but we would maintain that those scientists who are able to express themselves with plain words and visual devices, and to master a diversity of rhetorical and visual resourcesÐ the second intrinsic relationshipÐ are in an advantageous position compared to those who cannot. By choosing two examples from two different historical epochs, we try to argue our point about characteristics which have remained relatively stable over time (that is, within the epoch of `modern science’ ). Our limited scope does not allow us to make general claims. However, the results of our study reveal something that might be found elsewhere.

Popularization We draw upon Hilgartner’ s conceptualization of the role the scientist plays in the process of popularization. Hilgartner (1990) describes the dominant view of science and its popularization, according to which popularization is at best àppropriate simpli® cation’ , at worst `pollution’ Ð the distortion of science by outsiders, such as journalists. Hilgartner shows that it is theoretically impossible to draw a boundary between `science’ and `popularization’ . However, the distinction serves scientists as a political resource in public discourse. By retaining the ability to label some work as `popularization’ , scientists are able to discredit work with which they disagree. The concepts of purity (àuthentic science’ ) and of pollution presuppose each other. Hilgartner employs the notion of an èpistemic gold standard’ , that is the exclusive preserve of scientists, whereas all others have access only to simpli® ed representations or, if these others pretend to create scienti® c knowledge, put forward `counterfeits’ . The dominant view has an important corollary: because scientists have the monopoly on àuthentic knowledge’ , they enjoy great ¯ exibility in public discourse. For them, it is possible to put forward àppropriate simpli® cations’ while at the same time disparaging other available scienti® c representations current in public discourse. Hilgartner aims at deconstructing this dominant view, convincingly arguing that the distinction between science and popularization cannot be dichotomous, but must be gradual: `popularization is a matter of degree’ (Hilgartner, 1990, p. 528).

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Images and metaphors As Bruno Latour has pointed out, visualization is essential to establish knowledge claims, but he is also aware of the criticism that we might invest symbols and signs with a power reminiscent of mysticism: `We must admit that when talking of images and print it is easy to shift from the most powerful explanation to one that is trivial and reveals only marginal aspects of the phenomena for which we want to account. [They] ¼ may explain almost everything or almost nothing ¼ My contention is that writing and imaging cannot by themselves explain the changes in our scienti® c societies ¼ We need to look at the way in which someone convinces someone else to take up a statement, to pass it along, to make it more of a fact ¼ ’ (Latour, 1990, pp. 23± 24). Latour does not `® nd all explanations in terms of inscription convincing but only those that help us understand how the mobilisation and mustering of new resources is achieved’ . Therefore, one has to invent objects that are mobile but also immutable, presentable, readable and combinable with one another. He coins the term ìmmobile mobiles’ for this achievement. Inscriptions are mobile but immutable when they move; they are two-dimensional and their scale can be modi® ed and recombined at will. `The phenomenon we are dealing with is not inscription per se, but the cascade of ever simpli® ed inscriptions that allow harder facts to be produced at greater cost’ (Latour, 1990, pp. 40± 46). In a recent article, Simon Schaffer politely questions Latour’ s concept of ìmmutable mobiles’ when he says: `Despite recent insistence on the immutability of mobile inscriptions, pictures were always embedded in rather complex technologies that were not easy to translate, and their evident meaning relied on interpretative conventions that were by no means robust’ . He thus insists that every representation depends on craft and local contexts (Schaffer, 1998). While this seems to be an issue which can only be decided on empirical grounds and not a priori (there may be cases where immutable mobiles in Latour’ s sense emerge and thereby close off a debate), Schaffer also makes a more theoretical point which deserves our attention. Drawing on the work of Ludwik Fleck, he states that `the picture of science as an esoteric zone, where facts are made, and an exoteric zone, where they are consumed, is wrong. ¼ Facts and representa-

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tions are formed in the spaces between these zones. Facts become robust by drawing both on esoteric private work, produced in labs, observatories, and technical institutions, and on the general strictures of popular culture’ (Schaffer, 1998, p. 221). Hilgartner (1990) captures this thought in a model of an ùpstream’ ± ’ downstream’ continuum and claims that às scienti® c knowledge spreads, there is a strong bias toward simpli® cation (that is, shorter, less technical, less detailed representations). The question therefore is: ìs the particular transformation ª misleadingº (and therefore blameworthy)?’ (Hilgartner, 1990, p. 529).

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Different audiences We start with the beginning of the 17th century, when the audience addressed by scientists began to broaden and diversify considerably (Julia, 1986). During this time, in some important areas, the universities’ control over scienti® c and intellectual production and communication was diminishing. Academies, clubs and networks based on correspondence by mail were developing; this was due to an immense activity among private people in elevated social positions (e.g. magistrates, clergymen, doctors), well connected to the power elite (Brown, 1934). To be sure, these new networks of knowledge production were generally closed to the public, following the aristocratic model of the Academy. However, members of these networks used the press to disseminate their ideas to a lay public that identi® ed itself with a model of sociability based on the salons and the court. What is more, during this time more and more conferences were being held which were open to the public. In Paris, this process was institutionalized by TheÂophraste Renaudot (bureau d’ adresses) with the support of Richelieu (Solomon, 1972; Mazauric, 1997). This new audience for modern science was characterized by its curiosity (on the importance of curiosity in the early modern epoch, cf. Pomian, 1987; Olmi, 1992; Eamon, 1994; Daston and Park, 1998). This audience was as curious about science and philosophy as it was about literature, theatre or tulips. It was different from the community of experts, consisting of university lecturers and members of the networks of scienti® c debate which spread over Europe


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via the Latin printing press and the exchange of letters and manuscripts; in short, the `Republic of Letters’ , which itself promoted curiosity as a major virtue of its citizens. Obviously this sharing of the same value of curiosity for the new and the surprising, compared to the boredom that the authorities and tradition of scholastic culture evoked, played a decisive role in the constitution of the public known as the new scholars. Those curious about philosophy, music, belles lettres, however, were for the greater part not citizens; and they therefore remained outside, albeit close spectators, as does the audience in the theatre (from which the modern concept of audience is derived). This audience is always separated from the stage even if it is close to it, within hearing range of applause and catcalls. In this sense the curious audience, reachable through the press of books, the salons, the conferences and a few papers (les gazettes), represented a power of validation which became ever more important for artistic and literary production as well as for scienti® c and philosophical production. This audience acquired more and more power as an institution of legitimation in various cultural ® elds, above all literary, but also philosophical and scienti® c. However, it never replaced the community of experts who kept the role of the last resort, institutionally and politically authorized, albeit often contested. Scientists always need the institutional and symbolic acknowledgement of their peers. They enjoy such acknowledgement without worrying too much about the public who tried to access knowledge in vernacular languages (rather than Latin) and in a language liberated from the formal technicalities of scholastic thought, a language based on a dialogical model of communication.3 Scientists tried hard to adapt to the new audienceÐ in fact, this audience is an audience in the modern senseÐ without neglecting the learned. It is only with the help of the latter that they could hope to assert themselves, given that the ultimate goal was to enter into the teaching programmes of universities or colleges. Without these institutions and the networks of scholars, the scientists could not even exist (here we mean university education, and the communication networks closely intersecting with the networks of patronageÐ and often confused with them: this social structure which links scienti® c production and communication to the political and religious powers, cf. Moran, 1991; Westfall, 1985; Sarasohn, 1993).

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However, these two audiences, which were so divided (although their boundaries were fuzzy), were thought by the scientists to have expectations quite different from one another. The scientists and philosophers felt constrained to diversify their strategies of communication in writing for one or the other audience, or even in composing texts for both. Such texts addressed two different audiences and operated at two levels, switching between language and idiom (they translated from Latin into vernacular or vice versa, exploiting various genres of writing, ranging from the scholastic treatise to poetry, taking pains with the illustrations, organizing spectacular scienti® c performances, etc.). One could mention many names here; among the most famous are Bacon, Hobbes and Boyle, Galileo of course, and also Descartes (Shapin and Schaffer, 1985; Biagioli, 1993; Zagorin, 1998). Public communication thus acquired a heuristic role.

Descartes and his communication method If one looks at the Discourse on Method and related texts, one ® nds that Descartes very consciously turns to a twofold public. On the one hand, he addresses the learned public who can lend him recognition and institutional success; on the other hand (maybe above all), he speaks to the audience of the so-called curieux (curious), the much larger audience of literature and theatre, which in the same period enthusiastically embraced Corneille’ s Cid (cf. here and following, CavailleÂ, 1994). This appears very clearly in a letter written 2 years after the publication of the Discours, directed to the young and brilliant mathematician Desargues, from whom Descartes had just received a sketch of the treatise which became famous under the title TraiteÂ des sections coniques (Treatise of Conic Sections). While Descartes was giving advice to the author, he indeed provides a very accurate, if at times cynical, analysis of the audience: `You may have two models which are good and laudable. However, they require a different procedure. One is writing for the educated ¼ the other for the curious who are not learned’ . There are two groups to whom the message is addressed, and who need to be addressed in different manners. In other words, the framing of issues becomes relevant here. If Desargues wants to approach the learned he should heed their language, inherited from the Ancients, ànd not employ any


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new term’ ; `whereas your terms make your demonstrations dif® cult and prevent the audience from reading them’ . Should he want to write for `the curious who are not learned’ , things are entirely different: `Your terms, which are French and which show inventiveness and grace, will be better received by those who are not preoccupied (¼ ) and they also serve to attract the attention of many to read your writings, in a similar way as those who read about heraldry, hunt, architecture etc., without becoming hunters nor architects, just to be able to speak with their own words’ . The novelty, the wit and the elegance of a French quill appeal only to those who read solely to avoid boredom and to fuel conversation. Here Descartes refers with a little irony to the art of `honest conversation’ , which mimics the Recherche de la veÂriteÂ par la lumieÁre naturelle. [Ì could ® nd no style better suited to this end than that of a conversation in which several friends, frankly and without ceremony, disclose the best of their thoughts to each other’ (Descartes, 1985b, p. 401)]. This audience uses scienti® c and philosophical texts in a conversational manner, and the text has to present itself in various guises (and one must be able to read it aloud in the company of others). The ® rst principle of an `honest conversation’ is the exclusion of every form of forced and conspicuous erudition and of pedantry. If Desargues wants to appeal to the other audience, Descartes continues, if he wants to address himself to `those gentlemen who study only yawning’ , nothing in his writing must be more dif® cult to grasp than `the description of a palace enchanted in a novel’ . Recall that the projected book was about `conic sections’ ! Descartes, of course, has nothing else in mind than his Essay on Geometry, which he recommends to his colleague as an example to follow. This famous essay on method, however, which is in fact a sort of preface-manifest for three texts on method (Optics, Meteors, and Geometry), is not as easily understandable as a novel; but insofar as the language is concerned, it corresponds very well to the advice given in this letter.

The curious and learned According to this text, the Discourse on Method and the Essays have one exclusive audience: the curious, not the learned. The Meditations, for example, were written exclusively for the learned, if we follow Descartes. One has to acknowledge, however, that the refer-

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ence to geometry4 shows plainly that not even Descartes rigorously follows the advice given to Desargues. Even if Descartes, according to his writings, privileges one of the two categories of readers, his ® nal writing style reveals that he always tries hard to keep a foot in both camps. In other words, he always tries to write for the learned and the lay persons (the doctes and the curieux). This double strategy earned him the desired success: he wanted to earn the combined acknowledgement of the learned and the lay, of the mathematicians and of the circles where belles lettres were cultivated. But it is also easy to demonstrate, reading the same text and the paraphrase in the letter, that the spectrum of potential readers of which Descartes was thinking was much larger. In fact, on the social scale, it reached up to the summit of political authority: he sent a copy to Cardinal Richelieu, from whom he hoped to get money for his experiments; and it reached down to certain artisans whom he tried to enrol because of the high quality of their work, with which he hoped to realise his machines (for example, the Optics is also destined for the artisans who cut glass and can build optical machines).5 At the end of the Discourse, justifying the use of French, Descartes writes that he wants to submit his òpinions’ to the judgement of the readers who use only their `natural reason’ , and not to those who `believe only in ancient books’ : ¼

if I am writing in French, my native language, rather than Latin, the language of my teachers, it is because I expect that those who use only their natural reason in all its purity will be better judges of my opinions than those who give credence only to the writings of the ancients. As those who combine good sense with applicationÐ the only judges I wish to haveÐ I am sure they will not be so partial to Latin that they will refuse to listen to my arguments because I expound them in Vernacular (Descartes, 1985a, p. 151). In his correspondence, Descartes often says that he wanted to make the book as clear as possible, even for those who had not studied. The simple reason for this was his conviction that these readers would be more inclined to accept his philosophical and scienti® c arguments, since they did not have scholastic prejudices. One must not underestimate the philosophical and social importance


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of this care: Ì wanted women, too, to be able to understand it’ , he wrote to the Jesuit Vatier. And he adds immediately: `But [I wanted] the more re® ned readers to be able to ® nd enough material that would attract their attention’ (Descartes, 1638 [1964± 1972]). The more re® ned readers, as he explains in the Discourse, are those who `combine good sense with application’ . Obviously there is a slight contradiction, since Descartes says that he would rely on no judgement but that of the enlightened learned (the curious learned, one could say), after he has already stated that he would privilege the judgement of those readers with common sense. In fact, he hopes for a favourable judgement from both sides, and thus he writes for both. He seems to exclude only that part of the learned audience which `gives credence only to the writings of the ancients’ , i.e. in the ® rst instanceÐ but not exclusivelyÐ the followers of Aristotle. If one compares this division to that of which Descartes speaks in his letter to Desargues (and which he often con® rmed), the published text contains a signi® cant shift: Descartes seeks to be read in a favourable light by lay persons and learned alike. He especially wants to be acknowledged by those learned readers who know the old texts without subjugating themselves to them. This audience can be identi® ed. It existed in Paris before Descartes’ departure in 1629, and he always remained in contact with it, above all through Mersenne. An equivalent existed in Holland: an eclectic and very dynamic environment, composed of learned people who more or less openly rejected the scholastic tradition. These were promoters of mechanism, medical chemists, mathematicians, religious people with a broad culture, curious people of various kinds who also belonged to the same social strata (advocates, advisors, doctors, religious people), in sum: the important group which cultivated both sciences and belles lettres (cf. Lojacono, 1990, pp. 77± 104; for a more general picture, cf. Brown, 1934). As research on the conferences of TheÂophraste Renaudot’ s bureau d’ adresses (the ® rst academy open to the public, see above) has shown, this public included social strata not normally expected to participate in this kind of activity. This is indicated by the disparaging comments on the bureau d’ adresses made by people of learned and aristocratic background (Solomon, 1972; Mazauric, 1997). In his Discours, Descartes tries to build a double alliance with the modern learned and with the ever-growing audience interested in

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literature and open to scienti® c and philosophical knowledge. This alliance became stabilized against a common enemy: the school philosophers and the college pedants, discredited because of their impolite customs and language. Descartes has a project in mind: the destruction of the very principles of science and scholastic philosophy. Thus he is perfectly aware of the fact that he must also persuade the modern learned against their will, i.e. against all the prejudices which they inherited from their masters. Against this background Descartes’ strategic and philosophical approach towards a less educated audience becomes intelligible. One must bear in mind that this audience possessed a symbolic and real power, a power that was on the rise with the evolving culture of literature and the salons. However, above all, this double strategy (even if it was not entirely controlled by him) offered Descartes the possibility of effectively communicating his philosophy and science to a large and diversi® ed public. This is not only true of the rhetoric that he employed; rather, this strategy is present in the very process of inventing his philosophy. Descartes invents his science and philosophy not only in the work of writing, but also in the framework of multiple destinations, oscillating between two poles: one is constituted by the old-fashioned learned, the other by the `curious’ who have had no university education.

Graphical representation A good example to demonstrate that the invention of Descartes’ science and his elaboration for public purposes cannot be separated is to be found in his use of illustrations, above all in The World and The Man, the Essays of the Method and the Principles of Philosophy. Descartes always paid great attention to the scienti® c illustration of his worksÐ a fact that has so far been largely overlooked by most scholars. Because he thought of himself as a very bad painter, he looked for professional painters to make the engravings. He was happy to have found Franz Schooten Jr for the Essays of the Method. Descartes praises him as a `painter and mathematician’ in one person. Schooten also illustrated the Principles. Because he took so much care with this aspect of his books, one can conclude that he wanted to please the audience of the `curious’ and help them to better understand his latest demonstrations and descriptions of phys-


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ics. Thus, in a letter to Desargues, he writes that these gentlemen do not want to tire themselves by `turning the pages to watch the letters of a ® gure’ . He is not joking: both in the Dioptrics and in the Principles he reproduces the ® gure every time he makes reference to it. Looking at the engravings in the writings that Descartes himself edited, one immediately notes their double function: they are of both didactic and ornamental value, and one realises the balance between a scheme and a certain aesthetic quality. In the text, the reader is constantly reminded to look at the ® gures; indeed, he is forced to look at them, since the explanation, which is done through symbolic letters, is based on the ® gures (see Figures 1 and 2). It has to be emphasized that this style, which has become common today, was not at all common at that time. In that part of his physics which treats the human body (The Man, not published during his lifetimeÐ which is to say that Descartes had no opportunity to check the ® gures before they went to the printer; though drafts of the manuscript, which have been lost, certainly existed), and above all in the section where he gives a mechanistic explanation of the process of sensation, Descartes continually invites the reader to `look at the ® gure’ to understand what he explains: for example, how the nervous system works, or the famous pineal gland, or the brain, the nerve tubes and the liquids of the so-called animal spirits. These ® gures are not simply anatomical ® gures, since they have to show something that the anatomy cannot reveal: movements and actions basic to the physiological process. Obviously, one sees only a schematized anatomical ® gure with conventional letters attached to it; and this arrangement should allow the reader to imagine those invisible movements described in the text. When Descartes writes às you can see’ , he not only uses a didactic procedure, but a rhetorical one, too. This is for two reasons: ® rst, because the reader must consider what he is at the same time imagining, looking at, and reading; and second, because that which is seen (or nearly seen, but in fact imagined) is given in some way as a visual con® rmation, like an experimental proof of the scienti® c explanation. One can almost see the lines, the tubes and the ¯ uxes moving within the somatic machine in action (cf. CavailleÂ, 1991, pp. 147± 53). Here one might say: so what? Scientists make use of all available means in order to persuade their audience that their theory is right.

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Figure 1 . I llust ra tion from De sc art e s’ T ra it e´ de l’hom m e . Sourc e: Re ne´ De sc a rt e s, Oe uvre s, V ol. 1 1 , e dit e d by C. Ada m a nd P. T a nne ry, Pa ris: V rin


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Figure 2 . I llust ra tion from De sc art e s’ T ra it e´ de l’hom m e . Sourc e: Re ne´ De sc a rt e s, Oe uvre s, V ol. 1 1 , e dit e d by C. Ada m a nd P. T a nne ry, Pa ris: V rin

Therefore they want to and have to deceive their public; this is the price they must pay before they can hope to receive support. But before jumping to such a cynical conclusion, we must proceed further with our example of the ® gures in Descartes. This is not only because the explanation refers to the ® gures as didactic and persuasive illustrations, but also because it develops in a direct and simultaneous relation with the outline of the ® gure, in such a way that it becomes an integral part of the exposition and demonstration. At the same time, Descartes writes and sketches on his own behalf: the explanation is completely embedded in the attempt to ® gure

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the phenomenon which he wants to understand, and in this way the ® gure participates in the process of explanation. In this case, Descartes uses the sketch, the ® gure, as a means to imagine and to understand (in line with his mechanistic principles) the physiological process that cannot be shown with the anatomy of the bodies. This visualization (or ® guration) allows him to detach himself from the physical object, which is compact, opaque and mute, and to simplify and simulate its functioning on paper (that is, he imagines it during his work through the paper). But this process of ® guration also allows one to visualize and clarify the effort of rational representation. In other words, the ® gure plays an important heuristic role in the process of inventing science itself: it is a support, an instrument to make science. At this point all functions of the ® gure intertwine into a knot: those that refer to the public with their didactic and persuasive functions, and those properly heuristic. And we submit that the ® rst is not added on later to the second, but rather constitutes an integral part of it: this is the double intrinsic relation. Descartes invents his science by addressing an audience not necessarily expert, but attracted by the ® gures, and curious to decipher them with the text in their hands. What is more, Descartes is his own audience when he works and writes, when he scribbles and sketches for himself. Whether they write novels or science, all writers have to simulate themselves as audience: they have to identify themselves with the ® gures their audience knows. Every writer is the ® rst audience for his work, and therefore one cannot separate the effort of scienti® c speculation from vulgarizing and persuading, because the ® rst who has to be convinced of the validity of Cartesian science is ¼ Descartes himself!6

Simplicity as method and rhetoric In order to show the validity of our hypothesis, one could perhaps generalize from this particular case of scienti® c illustrations to the theory and methodology of the sciences, making a point about simplicity in Descartes. Figures have to be simple if they are going to make any impact. They must be easily read and understood. In physics they give a schematized and simpli® ed representation of the


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phenomenon, which assures that they can be understood and (to make use of Descartes’ terminology) give a clear and distinct idea. Descartes takes great pains to simplify his language, which he conceives as a vehicle and instrument of knowing: he simpli® es philosophical and scienti® c language, discarding as much scholastic language and logicism as he can. He also simpli® es the mathematical language in geometry by replacing cossic signs with letters from the alphabet, etc. Note, however, that in both cases simpli® cation does not mean presenting a given content of knowledge in a more accessible language, but rather elaborating a new mode of knowledge through an appropriate language. Such a language is no longer an obstacle, but a support for true knowledge: this is veri® ed both for the natural language and for the mathematical language.7 The effort at simpli® cation in fact obeys the methodological imperative of simplicity: in Descartes’ method, simpli® cation is a cognitive procedure, valid in all ® elds to resolve dif® culties, dividing them into self-evident elements. This is the second rule of method in the Discourse, the ® rst being the so-called rule of evidence: not to receive anything as true which we do not know with `clarity and distinctness’ , which is also to say, with ease and simplicity.8 In the Rules for the Direction of our Native Intelligence, the major writing on method, Descartes says: `the main secret of the method’ is `to distinguish the simplest things from those that are complicated’ (Rule VI, cf. Descartes, 1985a, p. 21). And: `We term simple only those things which we know so clearly and distinctly that they cannot be divided by the mind into others which are more distinctly known’ (Rule XII, cf. Descartes, 1985a, p. 44). Here, Descartes de® nes what he calls `simple natures’ , the ® rst elements of knowledge, but their simplicity has to spread to the whole process of knowledge production: `Those long chains composed of very simple and easy pieces of reasoning, which geometers customarily use to arrive at their most dif® cult demonstrations, had given me occasion to suppose that all the things which can fall under human knowledge are interconnected in the same way. And I thought that, provided we refrain from accepting anything as true which is not, and always keep to the order required for deducing one thing from another, there can be nothing too remote to be reached in the end or too well hidden to be discovered’ .9 Simplicity is thus a fundamental epistemological and methodological requirement even before it is a didac-

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tic and persuasive principle: to con® rm this, it is enough to refer to any of Descartes’ texts in any ® eld where he exploits his method: mathematics, physics, metaphysics. But we may also question this methodological primacy, which is considered to come ® rst in a process going from the more fundamentalÐ the simultaneous invention of method and scienceÐ to the more secondary and super® cial, i.e. the invention of the means to diffuse this science as a function of representing the audience(s). A re¯ ection on the precept of simplicity seems to reveal that this is not the case, since from the beginning this requirement refers not only to scienti® c practice but also to the teaching of science, its diffusion in books, and the attraction it can exert on an audience. It suf® ces to look at Descartes’ intellectual autobiography, i.e. the Discourse on Method, to be convinced: the basic requirement of simplicity is taken up by the young Descartes (Discourse on Method, part I), disappointed by the manner in which the sciences (with the exception of mathematics) were conceived and taught in the schools. This requirement is an intellectual requirement, inseparable from the rejection of the usual mode of scienti® c writing and reasoning; a rejection shared by a whole generation fed up with the schooling it had received from Aristotelian teachers with a vast formal complexity at their disposal. This generation, however, considered such complexity sterile in terms of both knowledge and practical requirements. When his teachers instructed him to learn the Aristotelian de® nition of movement by heart (Motus est actus entis in potentia, prout in potentia est: movement is the act of an entity being in power insofar as it is in power), Descartes, with a bit of bad faith (but not too much), confesses that he does not understand this at all (The World, chap. VII). The requirement of simplicity and of simpli® cation is, in the beginning, a requirement of a scholar and reader, of those who do not produce science but receive it from masters and books. This requirement is shared by those who are fed up with what appears to be the empty complexity and useless dif® culty of a certain way of doing science. It is a real expectation of the audience, shared by the scientist as part of the audience. This requirement comes to play a fundamental methodological role, while at the same time it plays an important didactic role, since it possesses such an attractive and persuasive power.


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In this instance, too, we see Descartes as an innovator, since he tries to substitute the old rhetoric based on complexity, dif® culty, the secret and occult (the arcane is so important in Renaissance culture10), with a new rhetoric of ease and simplicity of understanding. You do not need a lot of study or a lot of Latin in order to understand my books and to understand and practice my science: it is enough to use your `good sense’ , leave your preconceived opinions behind and pay attention (don’ t judge a thing as long as its representation lacks clarity and distinctness). Therefore, even women can read the Discourse on Method, just as lecturers and pupils can learn philosophy in the Principles of Philosophy, either in Latin or in the beautiful French translation commissioned by the author himself. To sum up, one sees clearly how this rhetoric of simplicity cannot be separated from the epistemological requirement of clarity and distinctness. Whether Descartes always followed these imperatives in the production of his own science is another matter. OZ ON E LAY ER

In this part we look at the atmospheric sciences, presenting ® ndings from a case study on the protection of the ozone layer, based on interview material (collected by one of the authors) and document analysis. We look in particular at the role advocacy scientists played in the process (Grundmann, 2000). We try to show that their framing of the problem largely explains the fact that they were able to convince various audiences of the urgent need to act quickly. Thus we look at their deployment of rhetorical and visual means. A result of their efforts was the Montreal Protocol signed in 1987, 1 year before a scienti® c consensus about key issues emerged. The chronology of this case suggests that alarming ® ndings and their public communication were most important to motivate binding international agreements to curb emissions of ozone depleting substances. Behind this claim stands a theoretical model which assumes the following chain of effects: advocacy scientists alarm the public via the mass media and NGOs, which in turn in¯ uence political decision makers (Kingdon, 1984). We do not claim that the media determine what people thinkÐ but they have the power to determine what people think about (Mazur, 1981). Alarming ® ndings have the privilege of being high on the political agenda. Mostafa

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Tolba, UNEP’ s executive director and chairman of the negotiations during the lead-up to the Montreal Protocol, emphasizes this connection when he says: `The scienti® c community [provided] information that would convince reluctant partners ¼ Another element that speeded the proceedings was public opinion, alerted to the urgency of the situation by the media and NGOs’ (Tolba and Rummel-Bulska, 1998).

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Molina± Rowland hypothesis In June 1974, two chemists from the University of California at Irvine published an article in Nature in which they put forward the hypothesis that chloro¯ uorocarbons (CFCs)Ð a post-war wonder chemical that was cheap, chemically inert, non-toxic, non¯ ammable, and non-corrosiveÐ could damage the ozone layer (Molina and Rowland, 1974). The two scientists called for a revision of the long-believed harmlessness of CFCs, which were very popular with both producers and consumers of many domestic and industrial appliances. According to the Molina± Rowland hypothesis, CFCs could deplete stratospheric ozone, thus leading to an increase in UV-B radiation that would, in turn, have severe effects on biological systems (skin cancer in humans, crop damage, algae diminution) and on global climate. They took an advocacy position; which is to say they demanded a ban on CFCs in aerosol spray cans. Both scientists were isolated initially. Rowland, the most outspoken atmospheric scientist, was even regarded as a maverick and an extremist by some of his colleagues (Roan, 1989). From the beginning, there was controversy between the proponents of this hypothesis and industry. Advocacy scientists believed that although little was known, it was enough to warrant controls. Following the wait-and-see principle, the camp against CFC controls (industry and risk-denying scientists) demanded more time for scienti® c research before addressing the question of controls. Again, we shall focus on two inter-related issues, rhetorical strategies aimed at simplicity and the employment of visual images.

British Antarctic Survey In May 1985 scientists of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) pub-


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lished an article in Nature in which they claimed they had found abnormally low ozone concentrations over Halley Bay, near the South Pole (Farman et al., 1985; see Figure 3). Farman’ s article contained a very suggestive graph that plotted the decreasing ozone levels over springtime Antarctica together with increasing CFC levels in the Southern Hemisphere. This was criticized during the review process of the paper. One scientist expressed his concern thus: `Farman made statements, also in the press, that it must be CFCs and these were rather convincing to the public because Farman had this appealing plot which shows ozone decline and CFC increase in the same graph with an appropriate scaling so that the two match. To the scientists this indicated a possibility that the two could be related but the evidence was quite weak at that time’ (interview with US atmospheric scientist, Seattle, 17 November 1994). Another scientist criticized that `¼ that ® gure where he suggests a correlation between growth in CFCs and drop in ozone ¼ was scienti® cally not justi® ed. You may make an equally justi® ed plot between the Dow Jones industrial index and the ozone hole. If you have something going up and something going down then you can always slide the scales and it will look like a correlation but there is nothing scienti® c about it’ (interview with US atmospheric scientist, Boston, 6 November 1994). However, this publication started to change the perception of the whole problem. While the early advocates were alarmed (and through them the world public), the international community of atmospheric scientists reacted reluctantly to these ® ndings, mainly because nobody knew who the BAS was. Hardly anyone had heard of Joe Farman and his team. Thus the question was: are the measurements reliable? Ralph Cicerone, a member of the core group of the community, said: `The BAS is not a household word. At the time, most of us had never heard of it, had no idea whether these people did good work. You couldn’ t automatically give credence to the work’ (quoted in Roan, 1989, p. 129). One of the scientists thought that the measurements were plainly wrong. Several others con® rmed this: `When I heard about the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, I thought it must have been very bad measurements’ (interview with US atmospheric scientist, Princeton, 22 November 1994).

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Figure 3 . Dra m a t ic a lly low ozone ove r Ant a rc t ic a . Sourc e : N a ture 3 1 5, 1 6 M a y 1 9 8 5 . Pe rm ission M a cm illa n M a ga zine s Lt d

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Graphical representation The measurements taken by BAS were one-point measurements, meaning that ozone levels were measured above one station (Halley Bay). It was thus questionable, for many scientists, to make generalizations from this narrow database. They were supported in their scepticism by the fact that the instruments on the NASA satellite recording global ozone levels found no unusual concentrations. This was because NASA had programmed their instrument to ignore very low ozone levels in order to reduce the amount of data.11 At a scienti® c meeting in July 1985 in Switzerland, Rowland drew his colleagues’ attention to Farman’ s article. His colleagues were sceptical, since there was no independent source to verify the ® ndings of BAS. Things started to change as soon as NASA reworked their satellite data and validated Farman’ s results. However, to set this process in motion it was necessary that the possibility of very low ozone levels not be entirely excluded. NASA published its reworked ® ndings on 28 August 1986 in Nature (Stolarski et al., 1986). This revision was a painful process for NASA, since it amounted to admitting that the agency had failed embarrassingly.12 To be sure, the British were not the ® rst to discover low ozone levels in the Southern Hemisphere. A Japanese team had reported abnormally low values a year before the Brits. However, this team was even more remote from the core group of atmospheric scientists than the British team. The Japanese did not present their data in such a way as to alarm the public. Their ® rst report was at a meeting in Greece during a poster session: `The Japanese were measuring ozone in their station in Antarctica. And they found abnormal ozone levels. They reported that in a meeting in Thessaloniki. They had a poster, and you know how people look at posters. Nobody really paid attention. They had abnormal values, so what?’ (interview with US atmospheric scientist, Boulder, 20 May 1995). Their data contained only a time series of 11 months (compared to 26 years for the BAS). The results were not published in a major journal, but rather in an obscure outlet (Chubachi, 1984). It seems no exaggeration to say that they did not realize what they were measuring. The abstract of the article does not point to the low ozone values in October but to the exceptionally high values in July. In other words, their `framing’ did not catch the attention of their colleagues or that of the world public.

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Figure 4. Ozone dist ribut ion in t he Southe rn H e m isphe re , in Dobson U nit s (DU ), Oc t obe r 19 8 4 , 1 9 8 9, 1 9 9 1 a nd 1 9 9 3 . Sourc e : N ASA

After the issue was resolved and the British data accepted as valid, the phenomenon was described as the òzone hole’ . This was a powerful image that had an enormous impact on the world public and also on the negotiators of the Montreal Protocol. It has become one of the icons of global environmental problems (see Figure 4). After NASA had recovered the ¯ agged data, they commissioned the task of analysing them to one scientist. However, he was neither very experienced nor very skilful in representing them in graphical form: `¼ we decided that I will work with [the satellite data] a little bit. I had to learn how to read the tapes which were run on a VAX. They had to teach me how to run the plotting program. So I got these little contour plots and I took my coloured pencils and coloured in various regions and I pinned them up on the wall. I had a string, half of the hallway covered with them and Mark Schoeberl came by saying: that’ s a crummy plot. I asked: can you do better? And he said: sure! So he went on to start producing the coloured pictures which led to the movies. He did do better (laughs)’ (interview with NASA scientist, 7 June 1995). His colleague Mark Schoeberl came into this business because he had a great deal of experience in making computer images of ¯ ow motion: Ì always worked in stratospheric dynamics. I didn’ t get interested in ozone until somebody asked me to help them make an ozone movie, I didn’ t care for ozone since from a dynamics viewpoint it isn’ t important or wasn’ t important at that time. I was


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making computer images on ¯ ow and somebody showed me these data from TOMS [Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer, the instrument on Nimbus 7 satellite]’ (interview with M. Schoeberl, 14 November 1994). The result was those beautifully coloured images and animation pictures, which were shown in many contexts. They helped enormously in establishing the ozone hole as an emblem of the fragile planet earth, as a symbol for global environmental disasters and as an icon of our epoch as well: it represents the fragility of our planet (Sachs, 1999). NASA has several animation pictures on its website.13

Simplicity: invention of the òzone hole’ Before the metaphor of the òzone hole’ was created, experts and lay persons from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s were concerned with a possible future `thinning of the ozone layer’ . The difference between the two metaphors is evident (for the role of metaphors in science, cf. Black, 1961; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Maasen, 1995). While the thinning metaphor evokes the picture of a threadbare tissue, the hole metaphor evokes the picture of a balloon that is punctured and blows up or loses its air; or an organism that has contracted an infectious disease. This metaphor was clearly designed to capture the element of drama. Before 1985, everyone expected an ozone loss of maybe 10 or 20% in 100 years. After 1985, there was an observed actual ozone loss of about 50%. At that time no one knew how large the hole would grow: maybe it would `cover’ the whole earth. A member of the National Science Foundation commented on the ozone hole of 1989: Ìt’ s terrifying. If these ozone holes keep growing like this, they’ ll eventually eat the world’ (New York Times, 23 September 1989). The phenomenon was a huge shock for the atmospheric scientists, since they had not anticipated this even as an abstract possibility. Therefore, when the huge losses over Antarctica were con® rmed, this `wasn’ t a matter of subtle interpretation, this was a sledge-hammer’ (interview with US atmospheric scientist, Boston, 8 November 1994). It was again Rowland who coined the term òzone hole’ in

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November 1985, shortly after graphical data on abnormally large losses over Antarctica (plotted by NASA) had become available. Although the òzone hole’ metaphor was quickly picked up by the media, it took longer to become acceptable in scienti® c publications. 14 In 1986, a paper submitted to Nature with the term òzone hole’ in its title had to appear under a different headline (Stolarski et al., 1986). As one of the involved scientists told me: `When we submitted the ® rst data on that `86 Nature paper, we used the term Ozone Hole in the title and one of the referees objected to it. So we changed it. It is one of those terms where all the scientists said: Gee, this is not a very good term, but once it had been said, it was inevitable. It was such a simple description, it’ s a code word that means ª that phenomenon down thereº ’ . After the publication of the Stolarski paper in Nature, Crutzen and Arnold (two atmospheric scientists working in Germany) published an attempt to explain the ozone hole in Nature with the term òzone hole’ in the heading (Crutzen and Arnold, 1986). Still, it took some months before the term òzone hole’ became generally acceptable for scienti® c discourse. Only after 1987 did the term òzone hole’ acquire wider currency (see Table 1). This indicates that there was an uneven development within the scienti® c community. Some early advocates were convinced throughout the controversy that the problem would not go away, and that in the face of doubt precautionary policies were in order. Therefore, they addressed the audience of the lay public, mainly through the mass media. Other parts of the community preferred a more passive approach, waiting for more evidence and giving industry the bene® t of the doubt. However, advocates succeeded in alarming the public even though parts of the scienti® c establishment (i.e. important journals and colleagues) opposed their rhetoric. For example, James Lovelock, the author of the Gaia-theory and early protagonist of the ozone controversy, characterized Rowland’ s politics in the following way: `The whole issue would not have developed to this point if Rowland hadn’ t been so missionary about it. If it would have been treated objectively, scienti® cally, as I would have liked it to be done, it probably would never have been treated as a serious issue by the public and by politicians. If he hadn’ t stirred up the Greens and the politicians. He must have spent an enormous


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Table 1. ‘Ozone Hole’ in scienti c journals. Source: Science Citation Index. Year Articles (in title only) Editorials, Letters, Notes (in title only)

‘85

‘86

‘87

‘88

‘89

‘90

‘91

‘92

‘93

‘94

‘95

‘96 ‘97

0

2

7

11

12

8

14

7

6

2

10

10

13

0

9

10

12

13

3

6

12

5

4

4

2

1

amount of his time and effort going around lecturing, talking. He really barnstormed. He went to every little town and every little community, delivering his speech. I thought this isn’ t the way to do science, but I think he was probably right, because he believed in it’ (interview with Jim Lovelock, 30 May 1995). In fact, as one American scientist put it, `Science does not exist in a vacuum. There is an old Polish saying: ª The guy would starve to death unless a pigeon ¯ ew into his mouthº Ð If you just stand on the hillside with your mouth open, in science, you may be producing the greatest amount of work, but you’ ve got to sell it to show that your work is worth funding. When you have limited resources, you have to show that your science is better than anybody’ s else. Sometimes that is exaggerated’ (interview with NASA scientist, 14 November 1994). This raises more general and important questions about the effect of funding on scienti® c research agendas and applications. Scientists may be led into collusion with their patrons (funding agencies), or they may not publish results because they expect to make pro® ts from their ® ndings. They may also be prohibited from publishing by their research contracts (Blumenthal et al., 1997). However, a detailed discussion of these questions lies beyond the scope of this article. To sum up, it appears to us that the point about simplicity is important, since the issue has for a long time been clouded in uncertainty. Advocacy scientists reduced the uncertainty by framing the issue in a way that resonated with public anxieties and identi® ed a course of action. In this way, the public had an in¯ uence on scienti® c claims making, very much as in Descartes’ case. In both cases, the in¯ uence was not direct; rather, it occurred through the scientists’ perception of the mood of the public.

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CON CLU SION : SCI EN CE AS SI M PLI FICAT I ON

Comparing the two cases we have presented, one can see the common elements, the things that have remained stable and that could indicate a structural feature of modern science: what we call the double intrinsic relationÐ albeit this is largely speculative at this stage, considering our narrow data basis. The ® rst relationship holds between the logic of discovery and the attempt to address and persuade an audience; the second relationship holds between the care which must be taken to convince other specialists in the ® eld and the attempt to reach out to the large public with all available means of communication. This leads public communication to assume a heuristic role for science. Therefore, scientists’ reaching out to the public has more important implications than being `mere’ rhetoric. In particular, metaphors and graphical representations have been instrumental in this process. We have seen the importance Descartes attributed to language drawn from simple mechanical experience in order to explain the sensory process of the human body, and the importance he attributed to the engravings `showing’ this very process to the eye of the beholder. Similarly, in the ozone case we have seen the powerful metaphor of the òzone hole’ and the decisive role played by graphical representations. As òzone hole’ replaced `thinning of the ozone layer’ as the root metaphor, this highlighted the catastrophic dimension: while `thinning’ evokes the picture of a tissue which is threadbare and can be repaired, the hole metaphor suggests that there could be irreparable damage. In both cases, however, one cannot simply speak of a cynical manipulation of the public at large and accuse the scientists of using a special rhetoric with no link to the work of scienti® c interpretation itself. After all, the term òzone hole’ has also become current in the scienti® c literature; it was not designated for special public use only. The intention of ® nding arguments convincing for the broader public is obvious. However, it is telling (and comes as no surprise if seen from the position we are putting forward) that the atmospheric scientists who coined the term òzone hole’ and produced graphical representations used the same metaphor and pictures for the academic and public discourse, for both the esoteric and exoteric context.15 But this intention also implies a projection of the scientist into this public, because this potential universal destination (even if


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this universality is only ® ctitious) is inscribed into the very operating concept of modern science. In this regard, as we have seen in Descartes’ manner of writing and communicating science, the attempt to simplify is not separable from the methodological demand of simplicity. The same holds true for the atmospheric scientists who framed the problem in terms that resonated with public perceptions. However, it would be foolish to downplay the many differences which both cases obviously present. Since the 17th century, many parameters have changed: the social position of scientists, the constitutive links within the scienti® c community, the political and social uses of science, the demands put on science from user groups, the economic implications of science and the economics of science itself. In the 17th century, science was primarily an instrument of the power eÂlite’ s prestige and self-celebration. The literary publicÐ the audience of books, museums and scienti® c experimentsÐ expected cultural innovations ® rst and foremost, and only in the second place technical applications. Today, there is a general social mobilization of science; the technical and ideological exploitation of science on the part of governments is much more important, but also more demanding for science. This is no exclusive or privileged link, if we think of the interaction between science and civil society, or between science and the economy, which have become much more complex and diversi® ed. We have reached a point where scientists not only act as advisors in political decision processes on the national and international level, but also in¯ uence public opinion at large, not least because of the greater impact the mass media have on everyday life. All this changes the modes of communication between the scientist and the public in a substantial way. Looking at this triangle of relations between the scientists, power eÂlites and the public, we can summarize our argument as follows. In the 17th century the public perceived science mainly in terms of curiosity and entertainment. This included a reception of scienti® c information similar to their perception of literary works and theatre (e.g. spectacular scienti® c performances). Scientists reached out to the public, ® rst of all, in order to gain support and thereby enhance their legitimation. However, the audience was not involved in discussions about the public utility of science. It was the exclusive privilege of the absolute power to make public decisions.

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Today, to be sure, the public is involved in the general political decision making process, but its relation to science has changed. In the 17th century, scientists thought that the public had not only to be seduced, but also convinced of the content of scienti® c claims. As we have shown, Descartes believed that the public was able to exercise its intellectual faculty of reasoning. During that epoch, scientists appealed directly to the reason and experience of the lay public in order to win its support in the battle against the oldfashioned scholastic scientists. It is an open question whether a similar mechanism still holds true today, e.g. in controversies over policy-related science disputes between and within scienti® c disciplines, but also between of® cial experts and other interest groups (industry and environmental groups). The equivalent would be scientists appealing to the public in order to win support against their peers.

ACK N OWLEDGEM EN T S

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We would like to thank Loraine Daston, Les Levidow and an anonymous reviewer for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. NOTES 1. Shapin says that there is much to recommend the canonical account. After all, science has in fact achieved a far greater autonomy. However, the dominant view sees this as an inevitable process (historical progress) while Shapin reminds us of how these different categories like `science’ and `public’ were constructed and the boundaries between them contested (cf. also Gieryn, 1995). 2. Recently, NASA scientist John Horack has commented on these issues in an interesting way. It is no surprise that he mentions how ® nancial funding pressures got scientists to `sell’ their science. However, at the same time he states that `the communication of new scienti® c knowledge is integral to science research, and essential for its continued survival’ (Horack and Treise, 1998). 3. Among those scientists who did not try to conquer the new audience we ® nd a modern promoter of Galileo’ s science, i.e. Gassendi, who also proposes a new philosophy, albeit in Latin. However, it is telling that his pupils immediately translated and adapted his thinking into French, cf. Bernier and his Summary of Gassendi’s in seven volumes. Regarding the relationship between science and Latin and Greek in the 17th century, it suf® ces to quote the `libertin eÂrudit’ La Mothe Le Vayer, who was reproached by the lovers of the new literature for having mixed Latin and Greek into his philosophical dialogues written in French. Angrily he replied: `¼ even if the languages are not a part of the sciences, Greek and Latin


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have them in their possession to such a degree that today it is nearly impossible to do without them’ (La Mothe le Vayer, 1988, p. 204). 4. Descartes’ argument stresses a real didactic virtue of analytical geometry: ìt appears to me that in order to make your demonstrations more trivial, it would not be out of place to make use of terms of calculation taken from arithmetics, as I have done in my Geometry: because there are far more persons who know about multiplication than people who know about the composition of reasons, etc.’ (Descartes, 1639 [1964± 72]). He is aware of the dif® culty of the last and ® nal essay on Method, since he prefaces it with the following caveat: Ùntil now I have tried to make myself understood by everyone, but as regards the following part, I am afraid that it can be read only by those who already have a grasp of geometry’ (Descartes, 1637 [1964± 72], vol. 6, p. 368, our translation). 5. This double destination creates a series of ambiguities and dif® culties in the form of the text of the Discours, which immediately show up and are even ampli® ed in its reception. For example, Jean Chapelain, the utmost authority in the theory of literature (who also composed the lists of intellectuals to be considered for a pension from the king), says in a letter to the most famous stylist in the French language of the time, Guez de Balzac, after reading the Discours, that the author is without doubt the `most eloquent philosopher in the recent past’ (27 December 1637 [1964± 1972]). But he also regrets the elliptical character of reasoning in the Discours, which makes it somewhat ìmperfect’ . Descartes readily acknowledged this defect, confessing that the incriminated parts had to do with his reluctance to spread certain dangerous ideas (above all the `sceptics arguments’ ), and his refusal to display the principles of physics, which would have upset the `doctes’ . But they were easily persuaded by his strategy of diverting their attention, since he never tries to face of® cial science and philosophy. Above all, his language, his vocabulary, the pure and easy style, made them believe that he knew nothing of the philosophy of the SchoolÐ confessed by `Father Mersenne’ , the postman of Europe’ s scientists. Cf. Descartes, Discours of the Method. 6. With respect to a dif® cult audience, Descartes writes in a text of his youth, The preambles, that `the majority of books are entirely known just by reading a few lines in them and looking at some ® gures. The rest is only there to ® ll the space’ (Descartes, Oeuvres, vol. 10, p. 212, our translation). 7. Descartes uses algebraic notation in geometry, in a purely heuristic fashion. It is all about presenting à new algebraic means of solving geometrical problems by making use of arithmetical procedures and vice versa. In other words, the aim is to show how, if we think of them in algebraic terms, we can combine the resources of the two ® elds’ (Gaukroger, 1995, pp. 299± 300, with reference to Book I of the Geometry). 8. Discourse of the method, Part II: `The ® rst, never to accept anything as true if I did not have evident knowledge of its truth ¼ The second, to divide each of the dif® culties I examined into as many parts as possible and as may be required in order to solve them better ¼ ’ (Descartes, 1985a, p. 120). 9. `Discourse on the Method of rightly conducting one’ s reason and seeking the truth in the sciences’ (Descartes, 1985b, p. 120).

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10. Às soon as I see the word arcanum (secret) in any proposition I begin to suspect it’ , he wrote in his letter to Mersenne of 20 November 1629 (see Descartes, 1985c, p. 11). 11. Consider the following two statements by NASA scientists: `What was said was: we ¯ ag that data as being possibly wrong but we still look at them. And somebody said, you ¯ agged them as being wrong, so you threw them away. No, we ® led them because they were outside the range of data we normally look at’ (interview with NASA scientist, 14 November 1994). `The satellite data are something like 200,000 measurements a day. When they come back they are run through that algorithm which ¯ ags data as probably bad. There are 8 or 9 types of ¯ ags, one of them was, anytime it reported below 180 Dobson Units it was ¯ agged. Nobody ever had seen ozone that low. So all the data from about `83Ð when it became lowÐ was ¯ agged. One reason is to have people in the group study these ¯ agged data. Especially if you see whole clusters of data, we ask ourselves: why are we ¯ agging this? Are we making a mistake in our measurement?’ (interview with NASA scientist, 7 June 1995). 12. NASA of® cials tried to justify their actions. Ùnfortunately, everyone ª knowsº that NASA did not discover the ozone hole because the low values were ª thrown out by the computer codeº . This myth was the result of a statement made by one of my colleagues in reply to a question during an interview ¼ He was not directly involved in ozone processing at the time and his answer was not correct. ¼ the myth that our computer code ª threw out the dataº is unfortunately very hard to correct without appearing defensive’ (McPeters, quoted in Pukelsheim, 1990). Another scientist angrily commented on NASA’ s ¯ op: `Look at how the ozone hole was found! That was an old brass and wooden instrument looking at the sky. When you think what NASA spent, it must have been billions on that TOMS satellite and they actually programmed it to ignore the hole. Because it didn’ t ® t the model. That’ s bad science. It’ s the wrong approach’ (interview with UK atmospheric scientist, 30 May 1995). 13. See http://toms.gsfc.nasa.gov/eptoms/ep.html. However, one has to be careful in describing the graphical representations. Hannigan (1995, p. 45) states that `the NASA satellite pictures ¼ transformed continuous gradations in real ozone concentrations into an ordinal scale that is colour-coded, conveying the erroneous impression that a discrete, identi® able hole could actually be located in the atmosphere over the South Pole’ . According to Ungar (1998, p. 519), the `satellite pictures were doctored and colored to make them more graphic’ . Maybe Ungar is merely rephrasing what Hannigan wrote, but it is clear that neither account rests on ® rst hand evidence. In fact, a non-linear fall in ozone concentrations over the South Pole compared to the surrounding areas has been measured each September and October since the mid-1980s. It is thus questionable to say that `continuous gradations were transformed into an ordinal scale’ . 14. This does not mean that the term was a media invention. The media had not misrepresented a scienti® c message, since the metaphor was invented by one of the key scientists. During a scienti® c meeting in 1985 in Salzburg, Don Heath, who had built the TOMS-instrument for the NIMBUS-satellite and had been involved


385

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in data retrieval, showed some colour slides with satellite data reaching from 1979 to 1983. This bird’ s eye view showed global ozone values over the Southern Hemisphere, i.e. the low Antarctic values in context. Only in such a form of representation was one able to see a `hole’ . Having seen the slides in Salzburg, Rowland obtained them from Heath and showed them at a talk in November 1985 at the University of Maryland. During this occasion, he used the term òzone hole’ Ð this was probably the ® rst time the term was ever used. Even before his lecture, he sent out a press release and phoned Walter Sullivan of the New York Times who ran an article the next day, using the term `hole’ . 15. This is somewhat different to Whitley’ s (1985, p. 16) claim that a more technical language is used where the ® eld of knowledge is highly standardized and formalized and enjoys a high social prestige, and more discursive language is used where the ® eld of knowledge is little formalized and has low esteem.

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