The 1923 scientistic campaign and dao-discourse: A cross-cultural study of the rhetoric of science

In 1923 the emerging Chinese advocates for the development of science successfully launched a war against the so-called "metaphysical ghosts," who believed that science was inadequate to address the fundamental questions of human life. An important and far-reaching spiritual effect of this "holy war" was to give rise to an attitude of religious zealotry toward the worship of science in China, a nation that had not yet experienced the baptism of science in the early twentieth century. This essay explores one profound source of this spiritual appeal by examining the campaign for science in the context of the Chinese tradition of Dao-discourse and by viewing this campaign as an estimable effort to maintain this sacred form of discourse. This approach has implications for an ignored study of the rhetoric of scientific popularization in a cross-cultural context.