ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book sets the scene with two articles which helped to inspire the writing of this book. Written by a journalist and a science and technology studies specialist respectively, these articles address the issues of hype and humility from a journalistic and a scholarly perspective. The book deals with issues of science communication from the perspective of theory and practice, with a special focus on the ethics of science communication. It contains vivid accounts by practising science writers of dealing with issues of hype, humility and metaphor on a day-to-day basis. Finally the book presents a number of analytic pieces by specialists in metaphor analysis who examine the use of metaphors in the interaction between scientists, journalists and public as they respond to various events in the biological sciences.
