Author : Roger Cooter
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 11,93 MB
Release : 1984
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780521227438
This study concentrates on the social and ideological functions of science during the consolidation of urban industrial society.
Author : Christopher P. Toumey
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 218 pages
File Size : 26,83 MB
Release : 1996
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780813522852
Toumey focuses on the ways in which the symbols of science are employed to signify scientific authority in a variety of cases, from the selling of medical products to the making of public policy about AIDS/HIV--a practice he calls "conjuring" science. It is this "conjuring" of the images and symbols of scientific authority that troubles Toumey and leads him to reflect on the history of public understanding and perceptions of science in the United States.
Author : Peter Broks
Publisher : McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Page : 197 pages
File Size : 40,4 MB
Release : 2006-06-16
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0335224377
Science is a defining feature of the modern world, and popular science is where most of us make sense of that fact. Understanding Popular Science provides a framework to help understand the development of popular science and current debates about it. In a lively and accessible style, Peter Broks shows how popular science has been invented, redefined and fought over. From early-nineteenth century radical science to twenty-first century government initiatives, he examines popular science as an arena where the authority of science and the authority of the state are legitimized and challenged. The book includes clear accounts of the public perception of scientists, visions of the future, fears of an “anti-science” movement and concerns about scientific literacy. The final chapter proposes a new model for understanding the interaction between lay and expert knowledge. This book is essential reading in cultural studies, science studies, history of science and science communication.
Author : John Hartley
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 38,74 MB
Release : 2014-09-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1849666040
Cultural Science introduces a new way of thinking about culture. Adopting an evolutionary and systems approach, the authors argue that culture is the population-wide source of newness and innovation; it faces the future, not the past. Its chief characteristic is the formation of groups or 'demes' (organised and productive subpopulation; 'demos'). Demes are the means for creating, distributing and growing knowledge. However, such groups are competitive and knowledge-systems are adversarial. Starting from a rereading of Darwinian evolutionary theory, the book utilises multidisciplinary resources: Raymond Williams's 'culture is ordinary' approach; evolutionary science (e.g. Mark Pagel and Herbert Gintis); semiotics (Yuri Lotman); and economic theory (from Schumpeter to McCloskey). Successive chapters argue that: -Culture and knowledge need to be understood from an externalist ('linked brains') perspective, rather than through the lens of individual behaviour; -Demes are created by culture, especially storytelling, which in turn constitutes both politics and economics; -The clash of systems - including demes - is productive of newness, meaningfulness and successful reproduction of culture; -Contemporary urban culture and citizenship can best be explained by investigating how culture is used, and how newness and innovation emerge from unstable and contested boundaries between different meaning systems; -The evolution of culture is a process of technologically enabled 'demic concentration' of knowledge, across overlapping meaning-systems or semiospheres; a process where the number of demes accessible to any individual has increased at an accelerating rate, resulting in new problems of scale and coordination for cultural science to address. The book argues for interdisciplinary 'consilience', linking evolutionary and complexity theory in the natural sciences, economics and anthropology in the social sciences, and cultural, communication and media studies in the humanities and creative arts. It describes what is needed for a new 'modern synthesis' for the cultural sciences. It combines analytical and historical methods, to provide a framework for a general reconceptualisation of the theory of culture – one that is focused not on its political or customary aspects but rather its evolutionary significance as a generator of newness and innovation.
Author : Tim Lewens
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 24,59 MB
Release : 2015-08-27
Category : Science
ISBN : 0141977434
What is science? Is it uniquely equipped to deliver universal truths? Or is it one of many disciplines - art, literature, religion - that offer different forms of understanding? In The Meaning of Science, Tim Lewens offers a provocative introduction to the philosophy of science, showing us for example what physics teaches us about reality, what biology teaches us about human nature, and what cognitive science teaches us about human freedom. Drawing on the insights of towering figures like Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, Lewens shows how key questions in science matter, often in personal, practical and political ways.
Author : Diarmid A. Finnegan
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 35,79 MB
Release : 2021-10-12
Category : Science
ISBN : 0822988399
For many in the nineteenth century, the spoken word had a vivacity and power that exceeded other modes of communication. This conviction helped to sustain a diverse and dynamic lecture culture that provided a crucial vehicle for shaping and contesting cultural norms and beliefs. As science increasingly became part of public culture and debate, its spokespersons recognized the need to harness the presumed power of public speech to recommend the moral relevance of scientific ideas and attitudes. With this wider context in mind, The Voice of Science explores the efforts of five celebrity British scientists—John Tyndall, Thomas Henry Huxley, Richard Proctor, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Henry Drummond—to articulate and embody a moral vision of the scientific life on American lecture platforms. These evangelists for science negotiated the fraught but intimate relationship between platform and newsprint culture and faced the demands of audiences searching for meaningful and memorable lecture performances. As Diarmid Finnegan reveals, all five attracted unrivaled attention, provoking responses in the press, from church pulpits, and on other platforms. Their lectures became potent cultural catalysts, provoking far-reaching debate on the consequences and relevance of scientific thought for reconstructing cultural meaning and moral purpose.
Author : Rachel E. Walker
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 16,59 MB
Release : 2022-11-23
Category : History
ISBN : 0226822567
Examining the history of phrenology and physiognomy, Beauty and the Brain proposes a bold new way of understanding the connection between science, politics, and popular culture in early America. Between the 1770s and the 1860s, people all across the globe relied on physiognomy and phrenology to evaluate human worth. These once-popular but now discredited disciplines were based on a deceptively simple premise: that facial features or skull shape could reveal a person’s intelligence, character, and personality. In the United States, these were culturally ubiquitous sciences that both elite thinkers and ordinary people used to understand human nature. While the modern world dismisses phrenology and physiognomy as silly and debunked disciplines, Beauty and the Brain shows why they must be taken seriously: they were the intellectual tools that a diverse group of Americans used to debate questions of race, gender, and social justice. While prominent intellectuals and political thinkers invoked these sciences to justify hierarchy, marginalized people and progressive activists deployed them for their own political aims, creatively interpreting human minds and bodies as they fought for racial justice and gender equality. Ultimately, though, physiognomy and phrenology were as dangerous as they were popular. In addition to validating the idea that external beauty was a sign of internal worth, these disciplines often appealed to the very people who were damaged by their prejudicial doctrines. In taking physiognomy and phrenology seriously, Beauty and the Brain recovers a vibrant—if largely forgotten—cultural and intellectual universe, showing how popular sciences shaped some of the greatest political debates of the American past.
Author : Dr. Pei-Shu Tsai
Publisher : Chartridge Books Oxford
Page : 93 pages
File Size : 23,36 MB
Release : 2016-10-29
Category : Education
ISBN : 1911033166
Summary Flipping the Translation in Popular Science is a collection of Dr. Tsai’s research and teaching experiences over the years as an instructor of courses on popular science and translation, and on translation practice in both directions between Chinese and English. The research material covers the latest science articles published through 2014-2016, providing translation examples with updates of technological development and new information on scientific matters. The book looks into common errors made by translation students, categorizes the reasons for such analysis error, and offers practical solutions and principles for translators to practice translation on scientific subjects. Key Features The author of the book has both a linguistics and a neuroscience background, providing a cross-disciplinary perspective to the discipline of translation. The participants in the study are graduate students of a translation and interpreting program, thus the discussion in the book avoids basic grammar and spelling errors that beginning learners of English would make. Data provided in this study are specific to translation as an academic research subject, not translation as a medium in English teaching. The book provides real-life translation examples from two directions, from English to Chinese, and from Chinese to English. Information about the Author Dr. Pei-Shu Tsai is an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation, National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan. She received a MA in linguistics at National Taiwan University and obtained training in cognitive neuroscience for her PhD study at National Yang-Ming University. Her research interests cover linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistics, and first/second-language acquisition, with a focus on semantics and ambiguity at lexical, sentential, pragmatic, and cultural levels. Readership Academics and students who major in translation and translation theories Contents 1 Popular Science and Translation 2 Evaluation of Translation 2.1 Error analysis in translation 2.2 Quality of translation 3 English-Chinese Translation 3.1 Materials 3.2 Data collection 3.3 Analysis procedure 3.4 Near synonyms 3.5 Background knowledge 3.6 Fixed expressions 3.7 Polysemous words 3.8 Combination of problems 4 Chinese-English Translation 4.1 Materials 4.2 Data collection 4.3 Analysis procedure 4.4 Near synonyms 4.5 Background knowledge 4.6 Polysemous words 4.7 Explicitation 4.8 Combination of problems 5 Suggestions for Translation Procedure 5.1 Sequential model 5.2 Dynamic model 5.3 Cognitive Perspective 5.4 Analysis procedure
Author : Alexandra Roginski
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 291 pages
File Size : 33,34 MB
Release : 2023-06
Category : Science
ISBN : 1316519449
A compelling history of popular phrenology in the transforming settler-colonial landscapes of the nineteenth-century Tasman World.
Author : Faidra Papanelopoulou
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 351 pages
File Size : 31,4 MB
Release : 2016-03-23
Category : History
ISBN : 1317077911
The vast majority of European countries have never had a Newton, Pasteur or Einstein. Therefore a historical analysis of their scientific culture must be more than the search for great luminaries. Studies of the ways science and technology were communicated to the public in countries of the European periphery can provide a valuable insight into the mechanisms of the appropriation of scientific ideas and technological practices across the continent. The contributors to this volume each take as their focus the popularization of science in countries on the margins of Europe, who in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries may be perceived to have had a weak scientific culture. A variety of scientific genres and forums for presenting science in the public sphere are analysed, including botany and women, teaching and popularizing physics and thermodynamics, scientific theatres, national and international exhibitions, botanical and zoological gardens, popular encyclopaedias, popular medicine and astronomy, and genetics in the press. Each topic is situated firmly in its historical and geographical context, with local studies of developments in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Denmark, Belgium and Sweden. Popularizing Science and Technology in the European Periphery provides us with a fascinating insight into the history of science in the public sphere and will contribute to a better understanding of the circulation of scientific knowledge.
