Abstract
Awful Archives
presents a timely discussion of controversies and the line between what constitutes "good" versus "bad" evidence within empiricism and the scientific process. Calling attention to the fact that evidence is rhetorically constructed, Rice implores us to interrogate the conception of bad evidence as equally constructed. Blurring the lines between "good" and "bad" evidence, Rice moves away from rhetorical conceptions of evidence as imbued "with a kind of
thingfulness
" (p. 5), as this theory of evidence lends itself to clear demarcations between authentic and inauthentic distinctions. Contemporary conceptions of evidence seen through the thing/object binary deny opportunities for nuanced discussions about the evidentiary process and ultimately ignore evidence's ability to do something as a performative property. Ultimately, Rice inquires into evidence as an act through which we attempt to "figure out what the fuck is happening around us" (p. 11) without the limiting characteristics of validity or empirical fidelity with which evidence is so often concerned. Alongside her analysis of the ways evidence is implemented, and often weaponized, by conspiracy theorists who frequently challenge the more empirical understandings of what evidence represents, Rice makes the rhetorical move from whether evidence is "good/bad" or "valid/invalid" to an alternative foundational rhetorical theory of what is the evidence doing.