Graduation Year
2026
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Writing and Rhetoric
Reader 1
Glenn Simshaw
Reader 2
Leah Senatro
Abstract
Scientific literature is often treated as the clearest and most objective form of scientific communication. I argue, however, that the genre’s defining conventions—formal tone, cautious language, rigid structure, and technical vocabulary—make scientific writing especially vulnerable to misunderstanding once it leaves expert audiences. Focusing on recent writing about autism spectrum disorder, the gut microbiome, and diet-based intervention, this project examines how legitimate scientific claims become rhetorically unstable, and how pseudoscientific texts exploit that instability. Through close rhetorical analysis of scientific articles, expert critique, and Elaine Gottschall’s Breaking the Vicious Cycle, I trace how association becomes causation, uncertainty becomes possibility, and possibility becomes treatment. I also consider how depersonalized language in autism research can quietly reinforce dehumanizing assumptions about autistic people. Ultimately, this project argues that scientific writing is not secondary to scientific knowledge. It shapes what science means, who understands it, and how easily it can be misused.
Recommended Citation
McNerney, Rayne, "The Appearance of Evidence: Autism, the Gut Microbiome, and the Failure of Scientific Communication" (2026). Scripps Senior Theses. 2900.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/2900
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
