Except for metaphor, tropes are arguably irrelevant to the analysis of science and technology. Among tropes, moreover, hyperbole and irony seem particularly ill-suited as the former exaggerates, while the latter undermines, two strategies at odds with a language intent on closely following the contours of the world of experience. While neither hyperbole nor irony has a place in the professional discourses of science and technology, both play a role in their popular representations. Hyperbole expresses our sense that these achievements exemplify the sublime, a form of experience applied at first to feelings of awe generated by great literature, then in succession to natural wonders like the Grand Canyon, triumphs of science like Newtonian physics, and such technological achievements as the computer and the Large Hadron Collider. While the Collider, the largest and most powerful experimental apparatus ever built, is an unalloyed technological triumph worthy of hyperbole, some of the alterations in social life that the computer has ushered in are open to skeptical debate. This is especially true to the extent that computer-facilitated communication has taken the place of the face-to face interaction that makes a robust social life possible. Irony is this skepticism’s vehicle.

The sciences and humanities have long been regarded as discrete intellectual cultures, separated by a sharp epistemic divide. Recently, however, turns toward "transdisciplinarity" have intimated the growing importance of overcoming disciplinary boundaries. The Rhetoric of Inquiry and digital humanities are two transdisciplinary projects that have attempted, respectively, to bring humanistic inquiry to the sciences, and to bring scientific inquiry to the humanities. This paper attempts to trace the parallel genealogies of both projects in an attempt to theorize some common traits of theory in a transdisciplinary mode. I suggest that articulating these projects with one another enables us to suppose that building transdisciplinary theory will entail a heightened reflexivity concerned with questions about scope, methods, and epistemic values.

In this paper I analyze strategies policy scientists use to bolster their ethos with American policymakers and the public in the International Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Working Group I Summary for Policy Makers (SPM), from their Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007. Specifically, I treat the visualizations of computer climate models included in the SPM as technologies that the IPCC authors used to re-integrate their paradoxical ethos: commissioned to give policy guidance on the basis of their scientific reputation, these authors nevertheless field ethical attacks if their guidance runs counter to prevailing political winds. The visualizations perform continuity between the authors' traditional scientific ethos and their policy ethos. They also shift the locus of persuasion in the SPM from ethical questions to appeals to values and logic (e.g. the results of the climate models).

1 The first shot fired in the intellectual property wars -the first one I heard, at least -happened during a skirmish between Island Records and Negativland, the sound-collage collective.In 1991, the corporate goliath took aim at the group's record -titled, simply, U2 -and blew it off the face of the earth.As a nerdy, motley crew of San Francisco Bay Area artists, weirdoes, and computer programmers, Negativland wasn't even a blip on the pop-culture radar, leaving it an unlikely target for a major lawsuit.So what would prompt one of the "Big Seven" record companies (now four, controlling 80% of global record sales) to use its full legal and economic might against, essentially, the world's tiniest band?As you may have guessed from Negativland's album title, it made the mistake of sampling the music of U2: the crown jewel in Island Records' multi-platinum crown.Poroi, 2, 2, November, 2003England, and WHO GIVES A SHIT? Just a lot of wasted names that don't mean DIDDLEY SHIT!" To add insult to injury, Negativland also mixed in a speech by U2's lead singer, Bono, which made the self-important Nobel Peace Prize nominee sound pious and ridiculous. 14 The record was released with little fanfare on SST Records, a small independent punk-rock label.But within four days of its release, Island Records and U2's song publisher, Warner-Chappel, came knocking to serve legal papers. 2Recognizing that it was a small fish compared to this oceanic multinational corporation, Negativland sent out a press release that stated, "Preferring retreat to total annihilation, Negativland and SST had no choice but to comply completely with these demands." 3 Even though Negativland had a strong fair-use argument, primarily based on parody, it didn't have the resources to fight a prolonged court battle.Instead it agreed to a very unfavorable settlement, a decision that haunts it to this day.Negativeland seems never really to have recovered.