On the Frontier of Science: An American Rhetoric of Exploration and Exploitation

219 Pages·2013·0.629 MB·English

by  Leah Ceccarelli

On the Frontier
of Science
RHETORIC AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS SERIES
(cid:129) Eisenhower’s War of Words: Rhetoric and (cid:129) The Political Style of Conspiracy: Chase,
Leadership, Martin J. Medhurst, editor Sumner, and Lincoln, Michael William Pfau
(cid:129) The Nuclear Freeze Campaign: Rhetoric (cid:129) The Character of Justice: Rhetoric, Law, and
and Foreign Policy in the Telepolitical Age, Politics in the Supreme Court Confirmation
J. Michael Hogan Process, Trevor Parry- Giles
(cid:129) Mansfield and Vietnam: A Study in (cid:129) Rhetorical Vectors of Memory in National
Rhetorical Adaptation, Gregory A. Olson and International Holocaust Trials, Marouf
(cid:129) Truman and the Hiroshima Cult, Robert P. A. Hasian Jr.
Newman (cid:129) Judging the Supreme Court: Constructions of
(cid:129) Post-R ealism: The Rhetorical Turn in Motives in Bush v. Gore, Clarke Rountree
International Relations, Francis A. Beer and (cid:129) Everyday Subversion: From Joking to
Robert Hariman, editors
Revolting in the German Democratic
(cid:129) Rhetoric and Political Culture in Republic, Kerry Kathleen Riley
Nineteenth- Century America, Thomas W.
(cid:129) In the Wake of Violence: Image and Social
Benson, editor
Reform, Cheryl R. Jorgensen- Earp
(cid:129) Frederick Douglass: Freedom’s Voice,
(cid:129) Rhetoric and Democracy: Pedagogical and
1818– 1845, Gregory P. Lampe
Political Practices, Todd F. McDorman and
(cid:129) Angelina Grimké: Rhetoric, Identity, and the
David M. Timmerman, editors
Radical Imagination, Stephen Howard Browne
(cid:129) Invoking the Invisible Hand: Social Security
(cid:129) Strategic Deception: Rhetoric, Science, and
and the Privatization Debates, Robert Asen
Politics in Missile Defense Advocacy,
(cid:129) With Faith in the Works of Words: The
Gordon R. Mitchell
Beginnings of Reconciliation in South
(cid:129) Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of
Africa, 1985– 1995, Erik Doxtader
Foreign Aid, Kimber Charles Pearce
(cid:129) Public Address and Moral Judgment:
(cid:129) Visions of Poverty: Welfare Policy and
Critical Studies in Ethical Tensions, Shawn
Political Imagination, Robert Asen
J. Parry- Giles and Trevor Parry- Giles,
(cid:129) General Eisenhower: Ideology and
editors
Discourse, Ira Chernus
(cid:129) Executing Democracy: Capital Punishment
(cid:129) The Reconstruction Desegregation Debate:
and the Making of America, 1683– 1807,
The Politics of Equality and the Rhetoric of
Stephen John Hartnett
Place, 1870– 1875, Kirt H. Wilson
(cid:129) Enemyship: Democracy and Counter-
(cid:129) Shared Land/Conflicting Identity: Trajecto-
Revolution in the Early Republic, Jeremy
ries of Israeli and Palestinian Symbol Use,
Engels
Robert C. Rowland and David A. Frank
(cid:129) Spirits of the Cold War: Contesting
(cid:129) Darwinism, Design, and Public Education,
Worldviews in the Classical Age of American
John Angus Campbell and Stephen C.
Meyer, editors Security Strategy Ned O’Gorman
(cid:129) Religious Expression and the American (cid:129) Making the Case: Advocacy and Judgment
Constitution, Franklyn S. Haiman in Public Argument, Kathryn M. Olson,
Michael William Pfau, Benjamin Ponder,
(cid:129) Christianity and the Mass Media in
and Kirt H. Wilson, editors
America: Toward a Democratic Accommoda-
tion, Quentin J. Schultze (cid:129) Executing Democracy: Capital Punishment
(cid:129) Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi and the Making of America, 1835– 1843,
Germany and the German Democratic Stephen John Hartnett
Republic, Randall L. Bytwerk (cid:129) William James and the Art of Popular
(cid:129) Malcolm X: Inventing Radical Judgment, Statement, Paul Stob
Robert E. Terrill (cid:129) On the Frontier of Science: An American
(cid:129) Metaphorical World Politics, Francis A. Rhetoric of Exploration and Exploitation,
Beer and Christ’l De Landtsheer, editors Leah Ceccarelli
(cid:129) The Lyceum and Public Culture in the (cid:129) The Good Neighbor: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Nineteenth- Century United States, Angela and the Rhetoric of American Power, Mary
G. Ray E. Stuckey
On the Frontier
of Science
An American Rhetoric of
Exploration and Exploitation
Leah Ceccarelli
Michigan State University Press (cid:129) East Lansing
Copyright © 2013 by Leah Ceccarelli
i
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992
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Michigan State University Press
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Printed and bound in the United States of America.
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series editor
Martin J. Medhurst, Baylor University
editorial board
Denise M. Bostdorff, College of Wooster
G. Thomas Goodnight, University of Southern California
Robert Hariman, Northwestern University
David Henry, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Robert L. Ivie, Indiana University
Mark Lawrence McPhail, Southern Methodist University
John M. Murphy, University of Illinois
Shawn J. Parry- Giles, University of Maryland
Angela G. Ray, Northwestern University
Mary E. Stuckey, Georgia State University
Kirt H. Wilson, Penn State University
David Zarefsky, Northwestern University
library of congress cataloging- in- publication data
Ceccarelli, Leah.
On the frontier of science : an American rhetoric of exploration and exploitation / Leah Ceccarelli.
pages cm.— (Rhetoric and public affairs series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 1-6 1186- 100- 6 (pbk. : alk. paper)— ISBN 978- 1- 60917- 391- 3 (ebook)
1. Research— United States. 2. Research— Social aspects— United States. 3. Scientists— United States.
4. Rhetoric. 5. Communication in science. I. Title.
Q180.U5C43 2013
507.2'073—d c23 2012049442
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Contents
x
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
chapter one. History of the Frontier of Science Metaphor. . . . . . . 29
chapter two. The Frontier Metaphor in Public Speeches
by American Scientists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
chapter three. The Dangers of Bioprospecting on the Frontier:
The Rhetoric of Edward O. Wilson’s Biodiversity Appeals. . . . 71
chapter four. Biocolonialism and Human Genomics Research:
The Frontier Mapping Expedition of Francis Collins. . . . . . . . 91
chapter five. Reframing the Frontier of Science:
George W. Bush’s Stem Cell Rhetoric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Acknowledgments
x
This book has benefitted, as all my scholarship has, from the
encouragement and thoughtful commentary of many colleagues
in the fields of communication, rhetoric, and science studies. To
reduce the feeling of déjà vu for my readers, I chose not to seek journal
publication for any of the work that would go into this book. But my
arguments will be familiar to some of you nonetheless, since I have
presented portions of it in invited lectures at University of Memphis,
University of Texas at Austin, University of Utah, University of Puget
Sound, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of British Columbia,
as well as at a number of scholarly conferences and in public lectures at
my own institution, University of Washington. The comments and sug-
gestions of the many people who listened to me talk about this subject
in those venues have been much appreciated. I also am thankful to the
Rhetoric Society of America for its Career Retreat for Associate Profes-
sors, to Barbara Schneider and Jen Bacon who joined me in a writing
group that came out of that workshop, and to our career mentor, Krista
Ratcliffe, who encouraged us to set and meet our writing goals. Two of
vii
viii Acknowledgments
my departmental colleagues, LeiLani Nishime and Christine Harold,
joined me in a writing group when the term of that other one ended, see-
ing me through the end of this project and beyond. I am grateful to them
as well as to the many graduate students I have introduced to fragments
of this work, knowing that they would offer me the honest feedback I
needed to improve it. I would especially like to recognize the research
assistance of ML Veden and Patricia Narvaes.
In addition to recognizing the intellectual support I have been fortu-
nate enough to receive, I would like to acknowledge some of the financial
support without which this project could not have been completed. I am
thankful for funding received as a Faculty Fellow in the 2011 Summer
Research Consortium, an initiative of Biological Futures in a Globalized
World, hosted by the Simpson Center for the Humanities (University
of Washington) and sponsored by the Center for Biological Futures
(Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) through Prime Contract
No. HHM402-1 1- D- 0017. The Simpson Center also granted me a
Crossdisciplinary Research Conversation Award in 2008– 2009 that
allowed me to have some concentrated research time as well the
opportunity to work with Celia Lowe. My own Department of Commu-
nication at University of Washington provided me with some funding for
the acquisition and translation of texts, and I benefitted from my Col-
lege’s approval of intensive research quarters and a sabbatical to focus
my time on writing.
I am especially grateful to Marty Medhurst and to his manuscript
reviewers for their timely and extremely helpful editorial direction. Your
work is recognized and appreciated. I dedicate this book to my parents,
Richard and Madeline Ceccarelli, and to my spouse Tim Smith and our
children, Kyler and Serafina.
Introduction
x
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan campaigned for reelection by
appealing to a mythic vision of America as “a shining city on a hill.”1
Democratic National Convention keynote speaker Mario Cuomo
responded by evoking another powerful American myth.
The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the fron-
tier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left
behind by the side of the trail. “The strong”—“ The strong,” they tell us,
“will inherit the land.” We Democrats believe in something else. We Demo-
crats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact,
and we have more than once. Ever since Franklin Roosevelt lifted himself
from his wheelchair to lift this nation from its knees— wagon train after
wagon train— to new frontiers of education, housing, peace; the whole fam-
ily aboard, constantly reaching out to extend and enlarge that family; lifting
them up into the wagon on the way; blacks and Hispanics, and people
of every ethnic group, and native Americans—a ll those struggling to build
their families and claim some small share of America.2
1