Introduction

Abstract

This book is an extended argument for moving public engagement with science toward organic methodologies. Organic public engagement differs from most models of public engagement by paying close attention to actually existing publics and how they behave within their ecologies. We provide both empirical research and theoretical foundations to evidence the artificiality of dominant methods of public engagement with science while also documenting the significant costs of such artificiality. Our goal is to provide a practicable alternative that is grounded in current empirical research, historical perspective, and sound theoretical foundations. In our view, once one is familiar with the research on ecology, ecological validity, human communication, and publics, the critique of artificial public engagement becomes rather obvious and quite damning. The same research leads naturally toward an alternative: the general methodology of organic public engagement and specific methods both for conducting research and building theory from that research.