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In a televised speech introducing the first episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s reboot of Carl Sagan’s TV series “Cosmos,” President Obama used a metaphor that is both familiar and troubling:
“America has always been a nation of fearless explorers. We dream bigger and reach farther than others imagine. That’s the spirit of discovery that Carl Sagan captured in the original ‘Cosmos.’ Today, we’re doing everything we can to bring that same sense of possibility to a new generation, because there are new frontiers to explore and we need Americans eager to explore them. There are no limits.”
This language is familiar because almost every president since Calvin Coolidge has claimed a special relationship between Americans and a metaphorical “frontier of science.” It is troubling because of the historical baggage it subtly imprints on its listeners.
The metaphor of the scientific frontier barely existed before the end of the 19th century. At the very moment when America’s literal frontier had disappeared before its relentless westward advance, historian Frederick Jackson Turner famously proclaimed the significance of the frontier to America’s national character...
“America has always been a nation of fearless explorers. We dream bigger and reach farther than others imagine. That’s the spirit of discovery that Carl Sagan captured in the original ‘Cosmos.’ Today, we’re doing everything we can to bring that same sense of possibility to a new generation, because there are new frontiers to explore and we need Americans eager to explore them. There are no limits.”
This language is familiar because almost every president since Calvin Coolidge has claimed a special relationship between Americans and a metaphorical “frontier of science.” It is troubling because of the historical baggage it subtly imprints on its listeners.
The metaphor of the scientific frontier barely existed before the end of the 19th century. At the very moment when America’s literal frontier had disappeared before its relentless westward advance, historian Frederick Jackson Turner famously proclaimed the significance of the frontier to America’s national character...