Shapping Science With Rhetoric. The Case Of Dobzhansky, Schrodinger, And Wilson

How do scientists persuade colleagues from diverse fields to cross the disciplinary divide, risking their careers in new interdisciplinary research programs? Why do some attempts to inspire such research win widespread acclaim and support, while others do not? In Shaping Science with Rhetoric, Leah Ceccarelli addresses such questions through close readings of three scientific monographs in their historical contexts-Theodosius Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937), which inspired the "modem synthesis" of evolutionary biology; Erwin Schrödinger's What Is Life? (1944), which catalyzed the field of molecular biology ; and Edward O. Wilson's Consilience (1998), a so far not entirely successful attempt to unite the natural sciences with the social sciences and the humanities. She examines the rhetorical strategies used in each book and evaluates which worked best, based on the reviews and scientific papers that followed in their wake. Ceccarelli's work is important for everyone interested in how interdisciplinary fields are formed, from historians and rhetoricians of science to scientists themselves.