ABSTRACT
The twentieth century opened with interest in rhetorical theory at perhaps its lowest point since the discussion of rhetoric began in ancient Greece. Chaim Perelman and colleague Madame Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca searched for a nonscientific, nontheistic foundation for discourse involving values. This search led them to the ancient discipline of rhetoric and, more specifically, to argumentation and the audience. Jurgen Habermas argued that political corruption, criminality, and class warfare were the major problems to be addressed by the humanities. Public debates over such issues, apparently scientific concerns, as the theory of evolution and global warming underline the fact that our discourse about science can be deeply politicized and influenced by personal motives, money, and organizational agendas. Rhetoricians also "take seriously the role of rhetorical choices, including the use of tropes and figures, narrative accounts, genre expectations, and terministic framing to shape conversations about science". The field of the rhetoric of science now appears to be well established, and has future bright.
