Rhetorical inquiry is a multidisciplinary field of study devoted to the critical examination of discourse. Initiated in classical times, it cultivates an "ability, in each [particular] case, to see the available means of persuasion" (Aristotle 1991, p. 36). As an academic field, rhetoric of science and technology is the study of how scientists and non-scientists use arguments to advance claims about science and technology.

The idea that there is a rhetoric of science and technology may strike some as perverse and others as obvious. In popular parlance, the term rhetoric connotes something less than truthful, the ranting of politicians who evade substantive dialogue. When tied to science and technology, rhetoric can sound like a curse, staining the purity of certain knowledge and precise measurement with the mark of ideological bias and political maneuvering. But to those who study the rhetoric of science...