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Conclusion
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139 Conclusion x P atricia Nelson Limerick pointed out that “the relation between the frontier and the American mind is not a simple one.”1 This book demonstrates the truth of that statement when it comes to the “frontier of science” metaphor. The metaphor guides American thinking about science so that the prospect of halting research in a particular area becomes unimaginable. It encourages themes of competitiveness and economic exploitation even when used by rhetors sensitive to the danger of such themes; it then gets interpreted against the interests of those rhetors by diverse audiences. By studying these metaphoric entailments in the public discourse of scientists and of politicians talking about science policy, we can better understand how a frontier logic catches them in its flypaper rhetorical trap, shaping scientific research in particular ways and sometimes blocking scientists from achieving the ends they seek. A summary of how the metaphor is used and received, and also at how it is critiqued, adapted, or subverted in American public address, can help rhetors gain more control over the resources of rhetorical invention that are available to them when talking about science in the public sphere. In 140 Conclusion this conclusion, a return to the three questions that guided this book helps organize the findings of the rhetorical analyses just completed. Question #1: Entailments of the Metaphor The first question I asked in this book was about what is selected and what is deflected by the frontier of science metaphor. Each time we look closely at the deployment of this metaphor, we learn something more about the implications that follow it. Throughout this book, I have examined texts that offer the frontier of science as a replacement for the literal frontier that allegedly formed the character of the American people and supplied that people with an abundance of material resources. We have seen the trope used in appeals for scientists to conquer knowledge territory and extract its treasures (regardless of who else might have a legitimate claim to that territory), and we have seen it used to depict American scientists as courageous souls who have a duty to always push forward to the horizons of knowledge (regardless of who might be trampled in the process). In each case, the metaphor invites a mental picture of American science as heroic, rewarding, and uncompromising. The earliest appearances of the metaphor established science as a national salvation at a time of anxiety about the future. WhenAmericans found themselves lacking their former outlet for economic expansion, no longer able to tell their young men to “Go West” to seek their fortunes , science was offered as a perpetually available new territory for exploration, an infinitely extended horizon that could accommodate personal ambition and return capital gains to the nation. Frederick Jackson Turner not only introduced the idea that Americans had a unique pioneering spirit, he also introduced the idea that the discoveries of American chemists, physicists, and biologists would serve as substitutes for the vanishing material resources of the nation’s frontier past.2 The significance of this entailment of the metaphor becomes clear when we consider an attempt to offer an alternative vision of America ’s future. During the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt acknowledged the anxiety of fellow Americans when he said that the nation’s “last frontier has long since been reached” so they have left “no safety valve in the form of a Western prairie”; he initially addressed this exigence by reasoning that the nation’s “task now is not discovery [54.175.59.242] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 12:54 GMT) Conclusion 141 or exploitation of natural resources” but the “more sober, less dramatic business of administering resources” that they already have, a task of “enlightened administration.”3 But such sensible analysis would hold little appeal for an anxious people, and it was not long before Roosevelt’s political opponent seized the opportunity to attack him for his pessimistic failure to recognize that the frontier of science and invention remains open for development in America.4 Chastened, Roosevelt would alter his rhetoric to accommodate this compelling new vision of science as the solution to what ails us; he admitted that while the old frontier might be closed, science and invention have opened a new frontier upon which young people will apply their considerable energies.5 Vannevar Bush’s Science: The Endless Frontier, commissioned by the Roosevelt administration, would repeat this claim, arguing that while the nation’s geographical frontiers might be limited...