Stony Brook University - SUNY Digital Repository

had become, throughout the 19 th
century and into the 20 th , defined
by a very “scientific” strain of certainty. In Connors’ 1983
article “Composition Studies and Science,” he explored the
question of “why all practitioners within the social sciences
and composition studies in particular have wished to reach out
to the natural sciences” (17). To begin to seek out some
answers, he offered a quotation from “conservative” rhetorician
Richard Weaver: “Physical science was beginning to change the
face of the earth, and it was adding greatly to the wealthproducing
machinery of mankind. It was very human for a group
engaged in developing a body of knowledge to wish to hitch its
wagon to that star" (17). Following Weaver’s metaphor, Connors
further explained such an “attraction”:
The immense romance of the natural sciences is very
difficult for any of the social sciences to resist,
and it is not unnatural that composition studies
should feel a powerful attraction in that direction.
[…]
Given the chaotic, anti-empirical, confused, and at
times mindless history of the teaching of writing, it
is not surprising to find that as we develop our body
of knowledge we are tempted by the vast successes of
the natural sciences. (17-8)
For Connors, those “natural sciences” offered the promise of
what he called “universal scientific maturity” and, for the
likes of composition, it stood as a solution to crises of
credibility, utility, and even simple identity. But this answer
in the form of science to such professional and cultural
dilemmas would prove to be an all too unfortunate illusion. The
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