In “Myths, Monsters, and Morality: Understanding ‘Antiscience’ and the Media Message”, Dr. Helen Haste argues that the only way to understand the public images of science and the dispute between science and anti-science is to understand the role that myths and metaphors play in the context of the concepts. Haste explains how while science fiction genres typically touch upon the benefits and dangers of scientific advancements, science fiction also is useful for seeing how a culture perceives science and its common understanding of science. For instance, most of what is considered as science was at first against the common knowledge of the culture. In the same manner, myths and metaphors are used to explain what is seen as typically not common. Metaphors and science have the same function in that it extends our understanding with the known to the unknown. Throughout the paper, science and commonsense were explained to both have a moral influence on the culture in different, yet substantial ways.

In Haste’s paper, she states that Lewis Wolpert argues “that scientific knowledge is counterintuitive and requires us to go against the obvious, the commonsensical. Haste uses this claim to further support her idea of making metaphors and science similar in that they are both involved in the search for the truth. Haste also uses quotes of other pro-science individuals in order to build upon her argument.

In the past, my research papers have lacked fluidity with the quotes I use and my response to the quotes, and this paper would be a good resource to go to in order improve my technique. I also like the connection that Haste made with metaphors and science as a way to understand its effect in one’s culture. I want to be able to create something new out of something that is normally undervalued or under appreciated. I originally chose this article because the title included morality which was something that I wanted to investigate, but unfortunately, it did not mention anything directly about the morality of Frankenstein’s monster. It goes to sure the inaccuracies of titles, and it makes me more aware of how deeply I will have to search in order to find the information that I really need.

Article: http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1179/isr.1997.22.2.114