Craig Waddell’s Perils of a Modern Cassandra and the Ehrlichs’ The Population Bomb :: Perils of a Modern Cassandra Population Bomb

Rhetorical Strategy in Craig Waddells Perils of a Modern Cassandra and the Ehrlichs The universe of discourse Bomb In Perils of a Modern Cassandra, Craig Waddell suggests that the Ehrlichs should revise their rhetorical strategy in The Population Bomb because it is ineffective in attracting readers to their lineage. Particularly snarly are the Ehrlichs alienating attitude towards non-educated non- conservationists in his audience, a lack of two an inviting ethos, and a lack of compassion for the reader. Since the goal of a book is commonly to inform or persuade readers, the Ehrlichs book does not serve its purport and is therefore ineffective. The same ineffective argument problem can be seen in Betrayal of cognition and Reason, since many of the Ehrlichs key ideas on environmental problems (along with their contestable use of rhetoric) in The Population Bomb are reverberate in Betrayal of accomplishment and Reason.The following passages were taken from Betrayal of Scie nce and Reason to demonstrate what Waddell sees as problems in the Ehrlichs rhetoricPaul began to step forward on radio and television to condemn the behavior of human beings in general. The possible public response worried him less than his colleagues reactions because, as is the part for most scientists, Pauls ego rewards come in general from the plaudit of his peers (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 8).This passage supports Waddells claim by showing that one of the Ehrlichs is wanting(p) in compassion toward humankind. When reading this passage, the reader gets a sense of ethos that revolves mostly around Paul Ehrlichs ego, and consequently, the reader feels that the entire conservationist argument of the book was written to satisfy his ego. This is because Paul Ehrlich liked the approval of his educated, environmentalist peers, and therefore, he really did not need to care about others in his audience.Anti-science as promoted by the brownlash is not a unique phenomenon in our hostelry the largely successful efforts of creationists to keep Americans ignorant of evolution is another example, which is mayhap not entirely unrelated (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 12).This is a good example of how the Ehrlichs inadvertently alienate large sections of their actual, not invoked, audience. The Ehrlichs may have invoked an audience estimable of educated, environmentalist readers, but this is not the audience who is reading Betrayal of Science and Reason. There are also creationists who might happen to harbor just about environmentalist sentiment and who might want to share a stronger environmentalist view given that the Ehrlichs argument is persuasive enough.