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Scientific Abstraction in Presidential Debates

Scientific Abstraction in Presidential Debates

Janie Diels, William Gorton
Copyright: © 2014 |Pages: 16
ISBN13: 9781466650039|ISBN10: 1466650036|EISBN13: 9781466650046
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-5003-9.ch001
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MLA

Diels, Janie, and William Gorton. "Scientific Abstraction in Presidential Debates." Communication and Language Analysis in the Public Sphere, edited by Roderick P. Hart, IGI Global, 2014, pp. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-5003-9.ch001

APA

Diels, J. & Gorton, W. (2014). Scientific Abstraction in Presidential Debates. In R. Hart (Ed.), Communication and Language Analysis in the Public Sphere (pp. 1-16). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-5003-9.ch001

Chicago

Diels, Janie, and William Gorton. "Scientific Abstraction in Presidential Debates." In Communication and Language Analysis in the Public Sphere, edited by Roderick P. Hart, 1-16. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2014. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-5003-9.ch001

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Abstract

This chapter takes a Cultural Indicators approach to link a large-scale increase in IQ, known as the Flynn Effect, to a specific cultural product, televised presidential debates. James R. Flynn has shown that IQs of persons living in industrialized societies have increased steadily over the past century, averaging a three-point gain per decade. Flynn suggests that the IQ gains are attributable to an increasingly conceptually complex social environment. According to Flynn, an important cause of this enriched cognitive world is the increasing permeation of scientific categories into cultural products such as literature, news, and even video games. The authors test whether the use of abstract scientific terms and the employment of such terms in causal and logical analysis has increased over time in presidential debates. No evidence that the discourse in these debates has become scientifically richer is found, and it is suggested that scientific discourse with respect to economics has actually declined.

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