Why Rhetoric of Science?

Scientific knowledge guides the way the public is targeted and hinges on the formulation of public policy. The public then has a stake in the outcome of the myriad of experiments. The aim of scientific publication is to improve the public's understanding of science.

Based on my understanding that rhetoric of science is more than scientific discourse that rather it is science as it is communicated to and consumed by the public who then use that knowledge (not information) is used to advocate public policy.

Scientists stake their claims based not on proof but on likely outcomes ; on probable cause and effect. However, putting that information out their on its own is not enough to effect change. it is not until data becomes information and then knowledge that science can work.

The audience is often lay persons--the public, who deliberate about the world around them, not scientists. Audiences get scientific information through text, and visuals, which include graphs, tables, diagrams, photographs, paintings, and drawings . This information should not be obfuscated in any way, if it is to serve its purpose.

Scientific information comes to the public through newspaper and magazine articles. People who would not normally pick up a scientific journal
Contemporary communication has seen the need for visualization in designing content; this visualization is seen as adding value to content and making it worthwhile for readers.

Resources:
Kenneth Burk writes about symbols inducing action "symbolic means of influencing belief and behavior" (7). Randy Harris in Rhetoric and Incommensurability writes about "effective suasion" (8)

Rhetoric..."speculation into language as filtes, as tools, as medium, first of knowing and then of distributing hat is made known" (9).
Variables of argumentation (19)
Cateories of rhtorical proof (ethos, pathos, logos) strategies and techniques inherent within thse strands and how they are applied to particular cases (hueristics)
Strategies of inquiry--we call them. They include enthymeme, topoi
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Stasis is to stand (131)
From status as promulgated by Gorgias->aristotle-->Hermagoras
"the place between the direction of a controversy can take" (13). There are Four parts to Stasis: (fact--> definition-->quality-->jusridiction
Cicero in "De Inventione" indicate 4-ways stasis system-->has got 5 elements of rhetoric of rhetoric-->3 genres of oratory-->6 parts of oration. Cicero moves from casting rhetoric as persuasion to casting it as a "fluid instrument of understanding" (14) resulting in wisdom delivered through eloquence.

Aesthetics "concerns have always been integral to rhetoric" (15). Gorgias' influence is said to have resulted in figures, tropes, schemes ushering in an element of aesthetics and science.

Harris claims these have come to be seen as misleading, corrosive to truth and knowldge (15) while Spratt, Locke, Bacon resisting rhetoric largely due to mistrust meant that science steered clear of rhetoric--Plato/Ramus/Bacon.
The irony, though, is that in this phase, science communication was largely based on monologue--knower addressing the ignorant. Isocrates' claim that persuasion-->identification-->Burke (what's in it for me?)
Epsitemology--what counts for knowldge in science? According to Harris " a conequence of inerpretatioon, social construction, and rhtorical choice" (17).