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Between Fact and Fiction

Demarcating Science from Non-Science in Popular Physics Books

Felicity Mellor

Imperial College London, f.mellor{at}imperial.ac.uk

This paper looks at the ways in which popular science books, through their explicit insertion of science into the public domain, act to reinforce a distinct demarcation between scientists and their publics. It is argued that these books acquire a distributed media presence by acting as nodal points in an intertextual web. The intertextuality of popular science books causes images of science which are supportive of scientists’ interests to continue to circulate in public discourse despite the alternative images thrown up by public scientific controversies reported in the news. The paper looks at examples of popular physics books which, like many other popularizations of physics, draw explicitly on science fiction. Since these texts do not respond to any specific controversy within or around science, they provide examples of ‘routine’ boundary work. It is argued that by working at multiple boundaries, texts such as these are able to claim potentially contradictory attributes for science at the same time as sustaining its place at the top of a hierarchy of ways of knowing.

Key Words: boundary work • physics • popularization of science • popular science books • public understanding of science • religion • science fiction

Social Studies of Science, Vol. 33, No. 4, 509-538 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0306312703334002
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