Science and the sacred cosmos: The ideological rhetoric of Carl Sagan
- 1 May 1985
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Quarterly Journal of Speech
- Vol. 71 (2) , 175-187
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00335638509383727
Abstract
In his public television series Cosmos, Carl Sagan uses evolutionary science as the doctrinal basis for a cosmology that attempts to answer questions traditionally belonging to the province of religion. Sagan's rhetoric identifies science with what is ultimate in nature by placing it at the apex of cosmic evolution, and thus he legitimates the role of the scientist in the modern world. Cosmos can be regarded as an effort to renew the religious bonds that formerly induced cooperation between science and society.Keywords
This publication has 18 references indexed in Scilit:
- Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of ScientistsAmerican Sociological Review, 1983
- Rhetorical hybrids: Fusions of generic elementsQuarterly Journal of Speech, 1982
- Accidental rhetoric: The root metaphors of three mile IslandCommunication Monographs, 1981
- The rhetoric of science and the science of rhetoricWestern Journal of Speech Communication, 1978
- The rhetoric of scienceWestern Speech Communication, 1976
- Thepersonaeof scientific discourseQuarterly Journal of Speech, 1975
- The polemical Mr. DarwinQuarterly Journal of Speech, 1975
- Charles darwin and the crisis of ecology: A rhetorical perspectiveQuarterly Journal of Speech, 1974
- Rhetoric and science journalismQuarterly Journal of Speech, 1970
- Darwin andthe origin of species:The rhetorical ancestry of an ideaSpeech Monographs, 1970