%0 Journal Article
%T Evolution as a fact? A discourse analysis
%A Jason Jean
%A Yixi Lu
%J Social Studies of Science
%@ 1460-3659
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0306312718785773
%X Since the middle of the twentieth century, there has been a heated debate between evolutionists and antievolutionists regarding whether or not evolution is a ¡®fact¡¯. The debate has spawned a number of court cases involving antievolutionists describing evolution as a ¡®theory, not a fact¡¯. An analysis of the ¡®fact of biological evolution¡¯ discourse reveals several overarching agreements among its advocates, but also a contradictory morass of positions regarding how scientific theories, hypotheses and facts interrelate, how these terms are related to biological evolution, what a scientific fact is, and how science popularizers use the scientific and public vernaculars. The formation, structure and development of the discourse is assessed through a Foucauldian discourse analysis, as well as through the lens of Gieryn¡¯s conceptions of public science and cultural cartography
%K cultural cartography
%K discourse
%K evolution
%K fact
%K public science
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306312718785773