Stop Lying to Us, Stephen Hawking

When I started reading Mishra and Wolf, I definitely went into it thinking of homo rhetorica and homo seriosa, from Fish at the beginning of the semester. Documenting with computers and science can only mean completely objective, rational appeals, right? Well, apparently we still can't create something without subjecting it through the experience of a human – in other words, we can't create a realistic but fictional alien because we are not aliens so we don't know how to express what they would be like or how they would think outside of our human state (Human Aliens - here's an interesting link that talks more about this issue with examples from tv).

Thus, mapping out scientific research with computers as well as even typing this out on the screen is all extremely rhetorical! Because we have crafted the very means for which it will be displayed – and since humans (as some theorists believe) cannot escape rhetoric, then our machines and our devices never will either.

Same goes for the image. Who would have thought that designating colors for specific functions for, say, an illustration of the human body and how it works would be rhetorical? The ideas of perception are fundamental for this, and made me question: do we actually even see things for what they are, or do we see them rhetorically? Do we see only their function, or can we see them completely objectively as mere reflections of light? After a little rereading of this paragraph: we could even question the terms “see things for what they are” because perhaps their definition and their perception to us is only function. Everything immediately becomes an object of rhetoric.

We can also think of perception and the idea of misconception that Mishra poses in the sense of literacy. A student must be somewhat “literate” in the reading of illustrations in order to see what is emphasized, what is downplayed, or even what may be missing or added from the picture.

But misconception goes farther than that – even to the little details of color and size – because we are emotionally inclined to react in a specific way to certain stimulants, like how juries will see pictures in black and white rather than in color because the color of red flesh or blood can influence them greatly (Mishra or Wolf). By making the thing look different than what it actually is – by removing the hue from it – the jury then is able to perceive the picture in a different manner, “more objective,” because we have ultimately downplayed the color/emotion and have allowed the audience to see not reality but an acceptable version of it. But that's the thing that Wolf is trying to express – the image is NOT reality - it is a mere representation that we have manipulated in order to simply and express a certain argument, or to create a sense that there is no argument or bias there.

So at the end of it, scientists have no way to be completely objective, so there is no homo seriosa, but only homo rhetorica. But – perhaps there is a reason behind trying to eliminate the idea of rhetoric, such as is the case for robotics and 3D imaging. While it is very possible to create a robot that moves, responds, and looks just like a human, when we actually perceive that robot, we become literally freaked out by it – but if we can still distinguish that it is not human, and we can have an understanding to how it works, then we accept it, and actually grow to like it more because it is not “human.” This hypothesis has been called "the uncanny valley." 

And now that I've included a scientific illustration we've come full circle. Does the uncanny valley look like a mustache to you?

By deliberately marking our illustrations and our research as biased (reviewing the limitations and the variables to research), then viewers have more reason to understand it and not be afraid or wary of it claiming to be perfectly objective.