Edited by Kris Rutten, Stefaan Blancke, and Ronald Soetaert, Perspectives on Science and Culture explores the intersection between scientific understanding and cultural representation from an interdisciplinary perspective. Contributors to the volume analyze representations of science and scientific discourse from the perspectives of rhetorical criticism, comparative cultural studies, narratology, educational studies, discourse analysis, naturalized epistemology, and the cognitive sciences. The main objective of the volume is to explore how particular cognitive predispositions and cultural representations both shape and distort the public debate about scientific controversies, the teaching and learning of science, and the development of science itself. The theoretical background of the articles in the volume integrates C. P. Snow's concept of the two cultures (science and the humanities) and Jerome Bruner's confrontation between narrative and logico-scientific modes of thinking (i.e., the cognitive and the evolutionary approaches to human cognition).
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Perspectives on Science and Culture, by Kris Rutten, Stefaan Blancke, and Ronald Soetaert
Part 1: Narrative and Rhetorical Perspectives
Chapter 1: Experiencing Nature through Cable Television, by David J. Tietge
Chapter 2: Steven Pinker and the Scientific Sublime: How a New Category of Experience Transformed Popular Science, by Alan G. Gross
Chapter 3: Architectonic Discourses and Their Extremisms, by Barry Brummett
Chapter 4: Science and the Idea of Culture, by Richard van Oort
Chapter 5: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Two Cultures in Literary Fiction, by Ronald Soetaert and Kris Rutten
Chapter 6: The Missing Link and Human Origins: Understanding an Evolutionary Icon, by Peter C. Kjærgaard
Part 2: Cognitive Perspectives
Chapter 7: Suspicion toward Science and the Role of Automatic Intuitions about Origins, by Elisa Järnefelt
Chapter 8: Bridging the Gap: From Intuitive to Scientific Reasoning—The Case of Evolution, by E. Margaret Evans
Chapter 9: Missing Links: How Cladograms Reify Common Evolutionary Misconceptions, by Andrew Shtulman
Chapter 10: Representations of the Origin of Species in Secular (France) and Religious (Morocco) Contexts, by Dominique Guillo
Part 3: Epistemological Perspectives
Chapter 11: Updating Evolutionary Epistemology, by Christophe Heintz
Chapter 12: Intuitions in Science Education and the Public Understanding of Science, by Stefaan Blancke, Koen B. Tanghe, and Johan Braeckman
Chapter 13: Vindicating Science—By Bringing It Down, by Maarten Boudry and Massimo Pigliucci
Part 4: Thematic Bibliography
Thematic Bibliography of Publications on Different Perspectives on Science and Culture, by Kris Rutten, Stefaan Blancke, and Ronald Soetaert
Index
Kris Rutten is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Studies of Ghent University and specifically within the research group Culture and Education. He teaches courses on cultural studies, culture and education, and qualitative research methods. Rutten's research interests are (new) rhetoric, cultural studies, literacy studies, educational theory, and the ethnographic turn in contemporary art.
Stefaan Blancke is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences of Ghent University, where he teaches philosophical anthropology. His research focuses on the diffusion of (pseudo-) scientific concepts in the history of science, science education, and the public understanding of science and on the philosophy of cultural evolution.
Ronald Soetaert is a professor emeritus in the Department of Educational Studies of Ghent University, where he taught courses on language and literature teaching, cultural studies, culture, media, and education. Soetaert's ongoing research focuses on education, culture, and media, with a special interest in the rhetorical and narrative turn.