Of Nerds and Words: Why Everybody Must Read Joe Romm’s New Book Language Intelligence

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Of Nerds and Words: Why Everybody Must Read Joe Romm’s New Book Lan...
[http://scienceprogressaction.org/intersection/2012/08/of-nerds-and-...]

Everybody who cares about why science doesn’t get through to the public should read it.

Basically, it is a powerful treatise on the neglected art of rhetoric, the technique mastered by Shakespeare, Lincoln, and the writers of the King James Bible. As an English major, I particularly delighted in Romm’s discussion of figures of speech and how they make orators persuasive by allowing them to activate people’s emotions. Indeed, as Romm writes, modern neuroscience now confirms what the poets always knew about getting to people’s heads through their hearts (that’s a metaphor, by the way–one of the chief techniques that Romm discusses).

If you ever want to understand why scientists fare so poorly getting their message across–and why liberals lose policy debates and, often, presidential campaigns–this is also the book for you. In essence: too much higher education, too much wonk sophistication, destroys the common language simplicity of good rhetoric and makes you less persuasive.

Tags: language, manipulation, motivation, religion, science, society

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Permalink Reply by Lore on September 2, 2012 at 2:13am

Well I'm going for my associates degree in English so I'll have to check this out. Looks pretty interesting to say the least.

Permalink Reply by steven.a.a.bauer on September 2, 2012 at 6:24am

this is why I became a mathematician.  numbers *never* lie ;)

Permalink Reply by Lore on September 2, 2012 at 11:26pm

Well I think you can also screw numbers to support what you are trying to "prove". I don't like to go by statistics because of that.

Permalink Reply by The Berns on September 4, 2012 at 4:58pm

Everything can be done with good rethoric.

It's an art I am fascinated - and good with, at least in the german language.
Nearly everything I accomplished by now is not accomplished by 'real skill', morel likely by good rethorics, lol.

Good rethorics are worth MUCH more than any degree one can get. I'll definatelly give the book a look.

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