I’ve been reading recently about the popularization of science.
A common theme in the academic articles I’ve read so far is the notion that as soon as a scientific story moves out of the academy and into the hands of journalists or writers a process of diminishment or loss begins.
In the best case scenario, a scientific finding will be reproduced by a journalist in a way that mirrors the truth of the original finding.
There’s little discussion of how the process can go the other way, how for example, a story about science research in a literary magazine can add new knowledge or teach us something new about the original research.
This was certainly what happened for me when I read Ian Parker’s story called ‘Obedience’ in Granta magazine some years ago. Although I admired the story initially I found what Parker had to say about an experiment I held dear troubling. But Parker’s portrait of Stanley Milgram was deft and inspired. He wove a wealth of detail into the story from his research that built a picture that forced me as a reader to look at the obedience research from a different point of view. Parker’s meticulously researched and beautifully written story took up where the academic articles left off.
I’d include a photo of Ian Parker here but as Jason Fagone points out in his article about Ian Parker, the man is hard to track down. No visible online presence. No social media profile. He leaves his writing to speak for itself.
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