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Professor Massiamiano Bucchi, from the University of Trento, will deliver a
paper entitled "Newton’s Chicken. Science in the Kitchen and Its
Metaphors". The lecture will be held in auditorium M225 (Mare building) on
Monday, 6 May at 11:00. Abstract:Bringing "Science in the Kitchen" has
become a very popular strategy to communicate science in books, games,
science centres and TV shows. The ideology of 'science in public' lying
behind this strategy is interesting for a number of reasons. It does not
offer, as much 'public science' tries to do, 'the wonderful', 'the
miraculous' or in general, something quite beyond the everyday experience,
leaving the audiences with their mouth wide open. Rather, it inserts
science into one of the fields that to the people's experience most clearly
embed everyday life: the kitchen. Thus, science colonizes an area that is
generally recognized as the privileged territory of common sense.
Scientific knowledge is not presented in antithesis to common sense, it
does not seek to subvert it as it has become typical of public
presentations of science especially since the huge public impact of this
century's revolution in physics. Science is here placed alongside common
sense, ready to take it by the hand and 'upgrade' it by enlightening the
theoretical significance of unconsciously adopted practices.Apparently only
a curious and funny aspect, the presentation of cookery as science is
revealing of a significant, although often neglected, ideology of the
relationship between science and common science. Furthermore, when read in
parallel with the complementary description of science as cookery in
different historical contexts, it adds another important angle to our
understanding of the strong connections existing between public
communication of science and core scientific practice.For further
information please contact:Arko OleskE-mail: arko.olesk@tlu.ee