The Role of Taste in the Belief in Pseudoscience

Abstract

This early-stage project begins to explore expressions of popular belief in pseudoscience from the perspective of rhetorical and pragmatic approaches to taste. I argue publics can coalesce around discourses of science as a matter of taste or self-fashioning. I start by analyzing published interviews and podcasts of basketball star Kyrie Irving, who became notorious for believing in a flat-earth. I then use Irving as a case study to draw preliminary conclusions for science communication educators before previewing the next stage of the project.