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Description of  Science from Sight to Insight: How Scientists Illustrate Meaning

022606848X epub John Daltons molecular structures. Scatter plots and geometric diagrams. Watson and Cricks double helix. The way in which scientists understand the worldand the key concepts that explain itis undeniably bound up in not only words, but images. Moreover, from PowerPoint presentations to articles in academic journals, scientific communication routinely relies on the relationship between words and pictures. In Science from Sight to Insight, Alan G. Gross and Joseph E. Harmon present a short history of the scientific visual, and then formulate a theory about the interaction between the visual and textual. With great insight and admirable rigor, the authors argue that scientific meaning itself comes from the complex interplay between the verbal and the visual in the form of graphs, diagrams, maps, drawings, and photographs. The authors use a variety of tools to probe the nature of scientific images, from Heideggers philosophy of science to Peirces semiotics of visual communication. Their synthesis of these elements offers readers an examination of scientific visuals at a much deeper and more meaningful level than ever before. Read more