The Cinematic Turn in Public Discussions of Science

207 Pages·2005·0.65 MB·English

THE CINEMATIC TURN IN PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS OF SCIENCE

by

Ron Von Burg

Political Science, BS, Arizona State University, 1997
History, BA, Arizona State University, 1997

Communication, MA, University of Pittsburgh, 1999

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of

Arts and Science in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

University of Pittsburgh

2005
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

This dissertation was presented

by

Ron Von Burg

It was defended on

31 October 2005

and approved by

Lucy Fischer

John R. Lyne

Pete D. Simonson

Gordon R. Mitchell
Dissertation Director

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The Cinematic Turn in Public Discussions of Science

Ron Von Burg, PhD

University of Pittsburgh, 2005

The specialized vocabularies and complex methodologies of scientific practice
complicate efforts both to communicate scientific information to lay publics and to enable those
publics to sort out competing scientific claims when public policy decisions hang in the balance.
Consequently, technical experts strive to invent rhetorical practices and argumentative strategies
that appeal to non-scientific audiences. One such strategy involves the use of popular fictional
films to support technical arguments that bear on public policy questions.
Film references are not simply clever labels or cursory illustrative examples, but
important communicative acts that serve a unique rhetorical function in public argument on
scientific matters. Scientists, science journalists, and science educators use films as metaphors,
narratives, or heuristics to help galvanize public attention or teach scientific and technological
principles to non-scientific publics. However, this rhetorical exercise invites debate over the
appropriateness and efficacy of using fictional films to educate publics about factual science. The
citation of film as evidence in public argument expands the rhetorical landscape to include texts
that transcend traditional modes of address within the scientific community.
This dissertation draws from rhetorical theory and film studies theory to investigate how
science interlocutors reference films in public discussions of science. It examines three public
discussions of science and the film references highlighted in such discussions: The China
Syndrome and the Three Mile Island accident, GATTACA and policy debates over genetic
science controls, and The Day After Tomorrow and climate stewardship policies. Each case study
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reveals how advocates articulate and maintain the boundaries of acceptable scientific arguments.
By attending to how the use of films as resources for the invention of arguments, this research
suggests avenues for engaging scientific controversies that are not predicated on intimate
knowledge of a particular scientific practice.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Science, Fiction, and Public Discourse...................................................................................1
1.1. Science Fiction in Science Debate..................................................................................1
1.2. The Influence of Science Fiction on Science Fact..........................................................7
1.3. Scientists Go to the Movies..........................................................................................18
1.4. Rhetorical Demarcations of Science.............................................................................29
1.5. Rhetorical Situations and the Boundaries of Science...................................................38
1.6. Theoretical Approach and Chapter Organization.........................................................50
2. The China Syndrome and TMI: The Rhetorical Struggle to Separate Fact from Fiction.....57
2.1. Introduction...................................................................................................................57
2.2. The China Syndrome and Making Sense of a Disaster.................................................62
2.3. Coverage of The China Syndrome After the Film’s Release........................................65
2.4. The TMI Crisis: A Rhetorical Meltdown of Nuclear Proportions................................77
2.5. Efforts to Repair the Rhetorical Meltdown...................................................................87
2.6. Conclusion....................................................................................................................93
3. Cinematic Genetics: The Impact of GATTACA on Science Policy Discourse.....................97
3.1. Introduction...................................................................................................................97
3.2. Our Relationship with Our Genes: A Dilemma of Fear and Fascination...................102
3.3. GATTACA and the Limits of Genetic Science Discourse...........................................112
3.4. Cinematic Identification and GATTACA....................................................................115
3.5. The ALRC/AHEC Inquiry and the Protections Against Genetic Essentialism..........123
3.6. Conclusion..................................................................................................................131
4. Decades Away or The Day After Tomorrow?.....................................................................136
4.1. Introduction.................................................................................................................136
4.2. A Breezy Overview of the Global Warming Debate..................................................139
4.3. Warming Up to the Challenges of Mobilizing Publics...............................................143
4.4. The Day After Tomorrow and its Appreciation for Yesterday....................................146
4.5. Will Global Warming Science be Credible The Day After Tomorrow?.....................152
4.6. Where is the Real Fiction?: MoveOn.org’s Campaign for Tomorrow.......................160
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4.7. Conclusion..................................................................................................................166
5. The Final Reel.....................................................................................................................170
5.1. Introduction.................................................................................................................170
5.2. Common Themes Emerging from the Analysis..........................................................174
5.3. Rhetoric of Science: The Debate From Within...........................................................179
5.4. Avenues for Future Research......................................................................................188
Bibliography...............................................................................................................................191

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1. Science, Fiction, and Public Discourse
Science Fiction now has the job of providing for us the symbols with which conceptualisation of
our rapidly changing world is even possible…At its best, science fiction provides the most
supple and the most popular means of exploring questions of diversity and difference; it opens
up new possibilities; it makes us think. Science fiction most effectively addresses the questions
that have defined the age we live in: technology, gender, race, history. (183)
- Adam Roberts
1.1. Science Fiction in Science Debate
In the summer of 2004, the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society,
Chemical and Engineering News, introduced a regular feature called “Reel News” that invites
readers (mostly scientists, engineers, and science teachers) to review feature films. Victoria
Gilman, an assistant editor to the weekly, remarks that when they announced the feature, she was
“flooded with people who wanted to do it.” The reviewers were not only asked to evaluate films
for scientific accuracy, but also for their entertainment value. Gilman maintains that, “we want to
do not just the science, but how well does it entertain. I mean, it’s not really getting the message
across about the science if people are falling asleep in the theater” (qtd. in Kennedy 2004, B1).
If this attention to film was unique to the American Chemical Society, “Reel News”
could easily be dismissed as an idiosyncratic gesture to appeal to a wider audience. However, the
Chemical and Engineering News is not the only scientific publication to provide commentary on
the factual and fantastic elements of science fiction cinema. Science, Nature, and Scientific
American also publish articles that comment on the latest science fiction fare to either correct
scientific infidelities in the film or laud its scientific veracity.
This scientist-as-film-critic role is not limited to scientists using their professional insight
to comment on the scientific fidelity and entertainment value of popular cinematic fare.
Scientists, science journalists, and science educators use films as metaphors, narratives, or
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heuristics to help galvanize public attention and teach scientific and technological principles to
non-scientific publics.
In 2004, seismologists screening NBC’s critically-panned miniseries about a massive
earthquake that rocks the west coast, 10.5, argued that the depicted events were scientific
impossibilities and requested the network to preface the show with disclaimers about its
scientific infidelities and provide sources where audiences could find credible information about
earthquakes (CNN 2004).
In 1997, the University of Illinois hosted the week-long “Cyberfest 97” using HAL
9000’s birthday, the insecure artificial intelligence in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, 2001: A
Space Odyssey, as a pretext for soliciting high-profile scientists and engineers from various
academic and government institutions to discuss the current state of artificial intelligence and
space travel as it is depicted in the film. HAL’s birthday had also inspired numerous scholarly
and scientific works that discuss the scientific probability of a computer having the capabilities
of HAL (Stork 1997).
The list of examples where science fiction films surface in public scientific discourse
does not end there: The Matrix trilogy finds purchase in discussions of computer technology
(Swoboda 1999), GATTACA and Jurassic Park references emerge in debates of genetic
engineering (Kirby 2000; Vogel 1997; Yam 1997), The China Syndrome surfaces as a dramatic
illustration in public discussion of the Three Mile Island accident, (Burnham 1979), and The Day
After Tomorrow bursts on the scene in debates over climate stewardship policy (Booth 2004;
Tourtellotte 2004).
The use of fictional texts in public discussions of science may strike one as a curious
rhetorical choice. It is understandable that scientists would want to correct scientific
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misunderstandings found in a film on the rather valid assumption that most people’s exposure to
science is through media, in particular film. Inaccurate portrayals of science, as the “public
understating of science” advocates would argue, can hurt scientific appreciation and by extension
the formulation of responsible science policy, a legitimate concern given that cultivating an
educated citizenry on matters of science is seen as a central goal in a healthy democracy (Brown
1998b; Fuller 1997a).
However, science rhetors do not just engage films to correct scientific errors; they also
use cinematic artifacts as conduits to communicate scientific information to non-scientific
audiences. This more expansive mode of rhetorical invention raises potential concerns. In an era
where public scientific knowledge is arguably quite low and scientific authority faces numerous
challenges (Ziman 2000b, 2001; von Baeyer 1998) the usage of fictional film references in
scientific discourse as arguments or metaphors may blur the boundary between science fact and
science fiction, complicating efforts to improve uptake of scientific principles as they play out in
policy discussions. The blending of science fiction with science fact could be understood as
symptomatic of a “postmodern” culture, where the lines of fact and fiction are becoming
increasingly blurred (Baudrillard 1994; Jameson 1991). Indeed, such cultural analyses provide
significant insight into how science fiction inundates society with series of tropes (Bukatman
2002) and how science fiction serves as a critical tool to negotiate oppressive social relationships
(Haraway 1991).
This dissertation posits that film references in public scientific discourse are not just
ornamentations used to “dumb down” a specialized discourse for mass consumption, but are
discursive practices that alter the landscape of scientific communication between scientific
communities and non-scientific publics. These film references are forms of evidence that not
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only support substantive arguments in public scientific discourses, these references also
problematize prevailing standards as to what qualifies as acceptable public scientific arguments.
Therefore, it is not surprising that films, being popular and recognizable texts, surface as
discursive switching stations where rhetors, both scientific and non-scientific, go to generate
conversation about scientific matters. This dissertation explores how films can function as sites
for the invention of argument and how their deployment as evidence supporting particular policy
arguments alters public scientific discourse.
A rhetorical approach is especially well-suited to guide this inquiry for three reasons.
First, the central research question centers on the discursive implications of using films as forms
of evidence in public spheres. How evidence functions discursively to advance arguments,
specifically in deliberative spheres, has traditionally been the domain of rhetoric. This
dissertation does not attempt to make claims about the “internal workings” of science or the
evidentiary standards used within science. Rather, the focus is how the rhetorical choices of
science interlocutors involved in specific public discussions of science elucidate what qualifies
as appropriate forms of evidence. Since there are underlying public policy issues in each case
study, these public discussions of science are often framed within deliberative rhetorics where
film references function as evidence in persuading audiences to hold a particular perspective or
accept a specific course of action. To that end, I inspect how these forms of evidence are
marshaled by rhetors in various deliberative spheres.
Because science fiction is often understood metaphorically (Disch 1998; Seed 1995), its
applicability to scientific discourse becomes a site of contestation in framing scientific and
technological issues. The use of tropes in scientific discourse has occupied the attention of
rhetoric of science scholars for some time (Campbell 1990; Ceccarelli 2001; Gross 1996; Krips,
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