In recent years governments and scientific establishments have been encouraging the development of professional and popular science communication. This book critically examines the origin of this drive to improve communication, and discusses why simply improving scientists communication skills and understanding of their audiences may not be enough. Written in an engaging style, and avoiding specialist jargon, this book provides an insight into science s place in society by looking at science communication in three contexts: the professional patterns of communication among scientists, popular communication to the public, and science in literature and drama. This three-part framework shows how historical and cultural factors operate in today s complex communication landscape, and should be actively considered when designing and evaluating science communication. Ideal for students and practitioners in science, engineering and medicine, this book provides a better understanding of the culture, sociology and mechanics of professional and popular communication.

Robert Bakewell of Dishley Grange in Leicestershire is usually regarded as the founding father of modern farm livestock breeding, and is thought of as one of the legendary pioneers of the agricultural revolution in late eighteenth-century Britain. However, Bakewell was by no means the first English breeder to practise deliberate selection of desirable qualities in his livestock. This book sets out to examine the ideas and techniques of earlier generations of agricultural and sporting improvers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and to demonstrate the earlier sources of many of Bakewell's opinions and procedures. It reviews the relationships which may have existed between the ideas of practical animal breeders and those of philosophical naturalists with theoretical ideas about heredity. It also touches on the question of whether the stimulus for the development of new stock was provided by demand for different products or by a desire to obtain knowledge about the heredity of domestic animals.

In recent years governments and scientific establishments have been encouraging the development of professional and popular science communication. This book critically examines the origin of this drive to improve communication, and discusses why simply improving scientists communication skills and understanding of their audiences may not be enough. Written in an engaging style, and avoiding specialist jargon, this book provides an insight into science s place in society by looking at science communication in three contexts: the professional patterns of communication among scientists, popular communication to the public, and science in literature and drama. This three-part framework shows how historical and cultural factors operate in today s complex communication landscape, and should be actively considered when designing and evaluating science communication. Ideal for students and practitioners in science, engineering and medicine, this book provides a better understanding of the culture, sociology and mechanics of professional and popular communication.