Narrative risks in science writing for the lay public

This theoretical article proposes using Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action (TCA) as a normative instruction for texts intended for science popularization (SP). We used TCA approaches, such as the validity claims that should characterize argumentative debate and the interactive processes with ‘lifeworld’ components (culture, person and society), to create a theoretical relationship between Habermas's theory and SP practices. We propose that the TCA aligns with the objectives of a dialogic communication about science with the non-specialist public and can contribute to perspectives that emphasize dialogue about science in society. We conclude that the premises of communicative action can guide SP policies.

Peer-reviewed publications focusing on climate change are growing exponentially with the consequence that the uptake and influence of individual papers varies greatly. Here, we derive metrics of narrativity from psychology and literary theory, and use these metrics to test the hypothesis that more narrative climate change writing is more likely to be influential, using citation frequency as a proxy for influence. From a sample of 732 scientific abstracts drawn from the climate change literature, we find that articles with more narrative abstracts are cited more often. This effect is closely associated with journal identity: higher-impact journals tend to feature more narrative articles, and these articles tend to be cited more often. These results suggest that writing in a more narrative style increases the uptake and influence of articles in climate literature, and perhaps in scientific literature more broadly.

This paper analyses the use of wonder in the TV-seriesCosmos: A Personal Voyage(1980). Popular science has been studied extensively (e.g. Broks 2006; Leane 2007; Perrault 2013), and wonder has been studied moderately (e.g. Daston & Park 1998; Fuller 2006; Vasalou 2015). However, there are very few studies of wonder in popular science. This paper explores how and why wonder is used inCosmos, with the wider aim of understanding uses of wonder in popular science. The studies that discuss wonder in popular science (Fahnestock 1986; Perrault 2013) argue that wonder is used to enthuse the audience about science, but they do not discuss why wonder has this ability, nor whether wonder has other functions. This paper argues that Fuller's (2006) psychological and evolutionary account of wonder can elucidate why wonder has the ability to enthuse; it discerns three senses of ‘wonder’ (related to objects, emotions and attitudes); and it discusses other functions of wonder (existential, aesthetic and ethical). Due to the centrality of astrobiological questions inCosmos, this paper also highlights the relation of these questions to the senses and functions of wonder inCosmos.