Computer Simulation, Rhetoric, and the Scientific Imagination
How Virtual Evidence Shapes Science in the Making and in the News
By (author) Aimee Kendall Roundtree
Publication date:
24 March 2017Length of book:
144 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498557184
Computer simulations help advance climatology, astrophysics, and other scientific disciplines. They are also at the crux of several high-profile cases of science in the news. How do simulation scientists, with little or no direct observations, make decisions about what to represent? What is the nature of simulated evidence, and how do we evaluate its strength? Aimee Kendall Roundtree suggests answers in Computer Simulation, Rhetoric, and the Scientific Imagination. She interprets simulations in the sciences by uncovering the argumentative strategies that underpin the production and dissemination of simulated findings. She also explains how subjective and social influences do not diminish simulations’ virtue or power to represent the real thing. Along the way, Roundtree situates computer simulations within the scientific imagination alongside paradoxes, thought experiments, and metaphors. A cogent rhetorical analysis, Computer Simulation, Rhetoric, and the Scientific Imagination engages scholars of the rhetoric of science, technology, and new and digital media, but it is also accessible to the general public interested in debates over hurricane preparedness and climate change.
Aimee Kendall Roundtree’s Computer Simulation, Rhetoric, and the Scientific Imagination: How Virtual Evidence Shapes Science in the Making and in the News is an important foray into the rhetoric of leading edge science that stands to benefit students, teachers, and professionals. The theoretical concepts Roundtree introduces are useful in themselves for researchers who are interested in the complex nexus of technology and argumentation in diverse professional settings. The text provides excellent case studies of how effective communicators translate discipline-specific knowledge to audiences outside their realms of expertise. Roundtree’s thorough research methodology and data analysis make her book an excellent teaching tool for academic study as well as a model for professional practice. The book’s timely subject matter makes it a fascinating read as well as a clear example of how technology and professional communication drive each other.