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Language Mètode Science Studies Journal : Annual Review. 2016. Issue 6
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- The rhetoric of science and why it matters(2016) Ruse, Michael
- How to learn from our mistakes : communication of health crises(2016) Granda Revilla, JavierReviewing public communications emitted during health crises in the last thirty years is useful for verifying that there are a number of repeated mistakes: for example, untrained spokespeople with poor communication skills, ambiguous messages, lack of communication plans for the crisis, and improvisation, which ends up with the transmission of alarming messages to the population and contributes to administrations being considered suspicious or untrustworthy by the people. The denatured rapeseed oil scandal, mad cow disease, influenza A virus, or the recent Ebola outbreak are clear examples of how not to communicate and offer us an opportunity to learn valuable lessons before future crises arise.
- Analysis of health communication texts : UK press coverage of debates about assisted dying(2016) Seale, CliveConventionally, social researchers analyse media messages by reading text and coding it. This is time consuming and restricts many studies to small samples. Nowadays very large amounts of text are available in electronic form, offering potential insights into the health messages they contain, but which appear daunting to the analyst with limited resources using conventional methods. I explain and illustrate methods for the computer-assisted analysis of media texts, using specialised software (Wordsmith Tools and Wordstat). These allow the analyst to provide a statistical overview of the key features of texts, to compare them (looking at change over time, for example) and to select illustrative quotations that epitomise the trends identified.
- The future of health communication : innovating through partnerships(2016) Ratzan, Scott C.The Preamble of the Constitution of the World Health Organization reminds us that «Informed opinion and active cooperation on the part of the public are of the utmost importance in the improvement of the health of the people» (Grad, 2002). Nonetheless, nearly seven decades later, the conditions under which people can be informed and actively participate in their health management in a meaningful way are being globally challenged. Drawing from experience in a variety of areas that I will delve into in this article, I remain a believer that we can marshal the necessary forces to advance the communication of health issues and create a base for a health-literate population to make smart(er), healthier decisions that advance health and well-being.
- The debate on rare diseases : a look at media response(2016) Bañón Hernández, Antonio Miguel; Solves Almela, JosepRare diseases (RDs) are those that affect fewer than five people in every 10,000. There are around 7,000 RDs, they are difficult to diagnose and very few have a treatment. This article explores how the media report on the arguments and counter-arguments regarding the access to drugs for these pathologies, with critical discourse analysis for the case of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. We concluded that, in times of crisis, the debate polarises around economic arguments (the price of drugs), reinforced by doubts about their healing effectiveness.
- The fear of life : hyper-medicalised societies(2016) Pérez Oliva, MilagrosWe are becoming more vulnerable. The feeling of general uncertainty comes from the fact that we live through several crises at the same time. In a world dominated by consumerism and self-interest, health has also become a consumer product. The wellness industry offers shortcuts to happiness and remedies to overcome the anxieties and discomforts of life: shortcuts and remedies in pill form. In this context, journalism must ensure access to truthful, evidence-based information that allows people to manage their decision-making properly, especially in situations concerning individual and collective health.
- Tobacco and health : the changing role of the media(2016) Fernández Muñoz, EsteveFrom the mid twentieth century, several studies showed that cigarette-smoking was related to the increase in the incidence of lung cancer. After their publication the tobacco industry felt threatened and used the media to counteract the effects these studies had on the population. From this perspective, the present article reviews the role of the media in the dissemination of tobacco-related information and the evolution in tobacco control policies that the approach has caused.
- Youth, health and social networks : Instagram as a research tool for health communication(2016) Carceller Maicas, NatàliaCommunication is key in the field of health, and the digital age did nothing but increase its importance. Today, the Internet and the new mass media have become basic communication tools, which in the case of young people, are sometimes essential. Most youngsters in the Western world have a latest generation mobile phone, which they use to communicate, access social networks and share their experiences instantly with their friends. Including communication tools such as Instagram in youth health fieldwork poses a number of challenges, but also has the potential for social health research, allowing us to reach young people and enrich research ethnographically.
- Titan's organic chemistry : a planetary-scale laboratory to study primitive Earth(2016) Coustenis, AthenaSaturn?s largest satellite, Titan, has been revealed by extended ground-based and space observations, and recently by the Cassini-Huygens mission. Titan?s atmosphere hosts a complex organic chemistry in the solar system starting with nitrogen and methane and leading to the formation of hydrocarbons and nitriles, including prebiotic molecules. The atmosphere also contains traces of oxygen compounds. This system is subject to seasonal variations and different physical, dynamic, and photochemical processes. Interactions between the atmosphere, the surface, and the interior also play an important role in the astrobiological potential of the satellite.
- One of the foremost experiments of the twentieth century : Stanley Miller and the origin of prebiotic chemistry(2016) Bada, Jeffrey L.Stanley Miller is best known for his classic 1953 experiment on the synthesis of early Earth organic compounds, in the context of the origins of life. However, he did several other experiments that are lesser known and, in some cases, have never been published. The finding in 2007 that Miller had archived dried solutions from his 1950s experiments offered the opportunity of analyzing the products of his early experiments using modern day state-of-the-art techniques. These results, along with Miller?s results, have provided an inventory of the large variety of compounds that include amino acids, amines, simple peptides, hydroxy acids, simple hydrocarbons and urea, which can be synthesized under simulated early Earth conditions.
- The RNA World : piecing together the historical development of a hypothesis(2016) Lazcano Araujo, AntonioThe concept of an RNA world is a hypothesis firmly rooted in empirical data and is part of a long and complex scientific perspective that goes back more than fifty years to the discovery of the central role RNA and ribonucleotides play in protein synthesis and biochemical reactions took place. As the understanding of RNA biology progressed, several independent proposals of protein-free primordial life forms were suggested. Although this possibility was strongly reinforced with the discovery of ribozymes, there are many definitions of the RNA world, including several contradictory ones. One could say that it was an early, perhaps primordial, stage during which RNA molecules played a much more conspicuous role in heredity and metabolism and, particularly, in the origin and early evolution of protein biosynthesis. The overwhelming evidence for the catalytic, regulatory, and structural properties of RNA molecules, combined with their ubiquity in cellular processes, can only be explained with the proposal that they played a key role in early evolution and perhaps in the origin of life itself.
- Looking for the origin of life in cosmochemistry : asteroids and their carbon-rich meteorites(2016) Pizzarello, SandraCarbonaceous chondrite meteorites are carbon-containing fragments of primitive asteroids that have offered the only samples available to date giving insights into chemical evolution in laboratory analyses. Their study has revealed that abundant organic chemistry came to be in the Solar System ahead of terrestrial life and, by the input of these meteorites and comets, might have aided in the origin of our planet?s biochemistry.
- Reflections on the origin of life : more than an 'evolutionary' problem(2016) Ruiz Mirazo, Pedro; Moreno Bergareche, Álvaro JuliánThis paper argues that the question of the origin of life cannot be explained by appealing exclusively to Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms, as many experts tend to assume, but requires a profound change in perspective. Accordingly, we highlight the fact that, in order to operate as a diversification force (and indirectly, a force for a potential increase in complexity), natural selection requires a number of conditions to be met in order for it to be possible: specifically, self-sustained and self-(re-)productive chemical organisation within a sufficiently large phenotypic space (that is, a wide range of functions). Therefore, we suggest an extension of the «self-organising» paradigm towards a «self-(re-)productive» one as an alternative to the main proposals regarding the origin of life, based on molecular populations (typically RNA) subject to Darwinian evolution. Such a paradigm would adequately portray the specificity of the biological phenomenon (particularly, its metabolic and cellular dimension) and would be relevant before, during, and after natural selection started to operate.
- The spread of Ebola : how the world health organization's rhetoric contributed to virus transmission(2016) Condit, CelesteThe tragedy of the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa was exacerbated by World Health Organization (WHO) rhetoric that depicted medical personnel as saviors of an irrational and emotional public. That common rhetoric rests on a faulty image of scientific knowledge as a substance that binds its affiliates into a community with special powers and immunities. This analysis shows how such rhetoric blinded the international community to attending to the potential role of health care sites and health care workers as vectors of disease transmission. This case illustrates why analysis of rhetoric is part of a full scientific approach to gaining, sharing, and deploying knowledge.
- Arguing to convince : the rhetoric of scientific discourse(2016) Albaladejo, TomásThis paper deals with scientific discourse as a rhetorical discourse from the point of view of the structure of the classical parts of oral discourse (and all kinds of discourse). The role of argumentation in discourse, with the perlocutionary goal of convincing the receiver, is studied as the foundation of the rhetorical nature of scientific discourse. A scientific treatise by Santiago Ramón y Cajal is analysed using the tools provided by rhetoric in order to prove the rhetorical nature of scientific discourse. The main contribution of this paper is to establish the crucial role of argumentation in scientific discourse and to demonstrate its permeation of the entire discourse.
- Genes, genomes, and codes : revisiting some key terms with multiple meanings(2016) Fox Keller, EvelynIs a genome the full complement of an organism?s genes or of its DNA? Is genetics the study of genes or of heredity? Is the genetic code the mechanism for translating nucleotide sequence to amino acid sequence or to phenotype? Does «genetic information» refer to the sequences coding for proteins or to all DNA sequences? Each of these questions stems from an elision between one, concrete, meaning, and another, open-ended and ambiguous. Such elision invites the illusion that the ambiguity of the open-ended term has been resolved, and by implication, that the gap between actual achievement and promise has been closed. Yet, despite the phenomenal progress molecular biology has made, we remain without an adequate account of the organization of proteins into an organism.
- On the origin of life : an incomplete scientific story(2016) Peretó, Juli; Lazcano Araujo, Antonio
- The universal ancestor : an unfinished reconstruction(2016) Becerra, Arturo; Delaye, LuisThe cenancestor is defined as the last common ancestor of every currently living being. Its nature has been inferred from the identification of homologous genes between archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotic lineages. These inferences indicate that the cenancestor had a relatively modern protein translation system, similar in complexity to that of a current cell. However, the key enzymes for the replication of genetic material and for cell membrane biosynthesis are not homologous in bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes. Here, we briefly review the history of the concept of the last universal common ancestor and the different hypotheses proposed for its biology.
- Monolingualism and creativity : scientific discourse and linguistic diversity in human and social sciences(2016) Maingueneau, DominiqueWhether or not monolingualism ??academic English, in practice?? is favourable for the production of knowledge in human and social sciences is now called into question. In order to further their careers, researchers seek to publicise their work by publishing in the most prestigious, best-known international journals. But we must not ignore the limits set by the operation of these journals on the production of innovative knowledge to challenge our intellectual routines. We can support the idea that creativity in social and human sciences benefits more from preserving a plurality of scientific production spaces than from a single homogeneous space, which usually tends to fall into complacency.
- Paradox and argumentation : from rhetoric to the refinement of mathematics(2016) Serrano Farrera, SebastiàParadoxes ??and the problem they present for logic?? can be traced as a subject for reflection from the Sophists to contemporary language philosophers and mathematicians, visiting Aristotle, Abel and Russell along the way, during which time rhetorical algebra transitioned into syncopated algebra and then to symbolic algebra. The paradox can be seen as an obstacle to aseptic reasoning, but it can also act as a compelling stimulus for imagination and the practice of argumentation or persuasion, a rhetorical tool that has encouraged rigorous thinking throughout history, in an attempt to avoid «concealed» lies in all kinds of discourses. It is, therefore, a challenge that inspires creativity within a culture indebted to the rhetorical tradition.
