Book Description

"Each of the book's three sections addresses a distinct set of topics. The first section, concerned with language and rhetoric, discusses how scientific information can be mistranslated for nonscientific audiences, how scientists try to escape the constraints of their professional discourse, and how tropes shape scientific epistemology. The second section, which focuses on history, myth, and narrative, shows that the literature of science is shaped by our view of history, is the product of our culture's mythic and narrative practices, and is therefore subject to interpretive decoding. Centered on ideology and culture, the third section explains that the literature of science has at times advanced, but now seems ready to subvert, orthodox structures of knowledge and power. It goes on to suggest how the scientific and popular cultures can reach a better mutual understanding." "The Literature of Science represents a major effort to examine the central questions raised by the interaction of science and culture."--BOOK JACKET.