Visual Cultures of Science: Rethinking Representational Practices in Knowledge Building and Science CommunicationLuc Pauwels Issues of representation affect every aspect of scientific activity, from the encoding, display, analysis, and presentation of data to the communication of scientific concepts and information to students and the general public. The essays in this collection explore the issues involved in the creation and deployment of visual representations in both the natural and the social sciences. Visual Cultures of Science offers a mix of theoretical analyses and revealing case studies. The latter address such topics as the technologies of visualization (from X-ray machines to films made by anthropologists), the persuasive power of the graphic presentation of data (including a critique of the work of Edward Tufte), and the distillation of data into pedagogical representations such as scientific wall charts for classroom use. With its useful mix of theory and case study, the book addresses both abstract and practical issues of representation, as well as demonstrating the importance of recognizing historicized perspectives in addressing issues of representation. These essays, by many of the field’s leading minds today, offer solid research and new information pertaining to the methods, purposes, and implications of scientific visual culture. |
Contents
Representational Practices in Knowledge Building | 1 |
Vision and ReVision | 26 |
A History and Philosophy | 41 |
The Accursed Part of Scientific Iconography | 63 |
Wall Charts | 90 |
Expression Multivocality | 120 |
Paulings Theory | 153 |
Edward Tufte and the Promise of a Visual Social Science | 222 |
Visual Literacy | 266 |
Contributors | 285 |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic analysis anatomical body anthropological antibody antigen arguments artefacts aspects Atlas audiences Cambridge camera chapter Chromolithography cognitive color communication complex concept construction context cultural depicted diagrams display Dodel-Port drawings edited Edward Tufte encoding ethnographic example field Figure film filmmaking formation granule cell graph graphic human illustrations instruments Journal knowledge laboratory Latour Liceo G Linus Pauling lungs Lynch material medium methods molecules montage nature objects observation particular Pauling Pauling's perspective phenomena photographs physical Prati production purposes recorded referent rendering representations in science role Schmeil School Liceo scientific practice scientific visualization scientists shadows social Sociology specific Steve Woolgar structure techniques theory things tion Tobelo Tongiorgi translated Trento Tufte Tufte's University of Lausanne University Press verbal visible visual anthropology visual literacy visual representation Visual Sociology visual thinking wall charts Wandtafeln Woolgar X-ray X-ray images Zoologische