8/14/2019 Author, Audience, and Argument Analysis of "Primal, Acute, and Easily Duped: Our Sense of Touch" an Article by

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Karyn Lewis

Science Writing 0502-460-70Winter 20082

Assignment 1: Analysis

Author, Audience, and Argument Analysis of

Primal, Acute, and Easily Duped: Our Sense of Touch, an Article by Natalie Angier

Touch is an ancient, primitive, and actively keen sense that is essential for truly feeling and

understanding our cradle of humanity. As Natalie Angier quotes in her article Primal, Acute,

and Easily Duped: Our Sense of Touch, written for theNew York Times, Touch is so central to

what we are, to the feeling of being ourselves, that we almost cannot imagine ourselves without

it (par. 4). Also, It is our most active sense, our means of seizing the world and experiencing

it (par. 7). While touch is a vital attribute to the human adventure, however, it is one that can

easily be distorted or misjudged through a range of sensory tricks and illusions. There is a lot

about the sense of touch we dont realizeuntil reading Angiers semi-scientific explanation of

our own misunderstandings.

Angier is a nonfiction writer and Pulitzer-prize winning science journalist for theNew York

Times, typically covering genetics, evolutionary biology, medicine and other subjects. Drawing

on her justifiably acclaimed journalistic skills, Angier provides a masterful synthesis of the state

of knowledge of our tactile senses in her December 9, 2008 article Primal, Acute, and Easily

Duped: Our Sense of Touch. Through aphorisms, puns, metaphors, and quirky examples,

Angier is able to convey the real scientific substance behind our sense of touch to a general

audience in a way that leaves the reader with images both vivid and useful in understanding basic

human sensations. For example, Angier starts off the article having us visualize running our

fingers over a smooth surface in search of a single dot the size of a period at the end of a

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sentence. She explains, Scientists have determined that the human finger is so sensitive it can

detect a surface bump just one micron high (par. 2). Of course this statistical description is ofno

use to ushow would the average, everyday American know how large a micron is? Reading

on, Angier is sure to let us know. She writes, All our punctuation point need do is poke above

its glassy backdrop by 1/400,000th

of an inchthe diameter of a bacterial celland our

fastidious fingers can find it (par. 2). We might not be able to imagine 1/400,000th

of an inch,

but we certainly know that bacterial cells are smallso tiny in fact that a microscope is needed

to view them. The audience can perceive the actual connection easily, thinking, Wow, our

fingers have amazing abilities! The overall tone of the article assumes the readers thoughts

speaking to us with terms we ourselves would use to describe a certain phenomenon and

redefining more complex or ideological processes with examples like the one used above

throughout the article.

The focus of Angiers article starts with the history and significance of touch, current research

and applications of the subject, and an overview of the biological aspects of sensory receptors

distributed across our bodies and hands. At first glance, the purpose of the article seems to be to

instill in its audience a sense of awe and wonder for our bodies. Angier makes statements such

as, touch is the mother of all sensory systems (par. 3), and It is the first sense aroused

during a babys gestation and the last sense to fade at lifes culmination (par. 3). A deeper look

and further reading send us in a slightly different direction, however. While our hands are

fundamentally the tools we use for experiencing the world, Angier draws on science, The

homunculus exaggerates some features and downplays others. In less scientific words we can

actually understand, on some tactile tasks, touch is all thumbs. Angier delves into the

human aspect of humanitybasically the idea that touch is easy to fool, particularly when

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combined with other senses and the human tendency to feel one thing and believe another.

Angier supports this claim with descriptions of experiments that prove our often-delusional sense

of touch, including that where blindfolded subjects are given a raised, bas-relief line drawing of a

common object such as a screwdriver. The subjects in this experiment are often stumped

because, If all weve got is contour information, no weight, no texture, no thermal information,

well, were very, very bad with that (par. 10). Even though, Its been shown that blindfolded

subjects can easily recognize a wide range of common objects placed in their hands (par. 10),

touch is easy to fool. Pulling these ideas together, Angier cleverly sums up her article with the

simple yet powerfully imaginative remark, Look up, little Pinocchio! Somebodys pulling your

strings (par.12).

Angier is able to plant awareness of the central scientific concepts of human biology as it deals

with our tactile senses for a general audience vague in the understanding of the mechanical and

chemical makeup of our bodies, all without distortion or dumbing down of the topic. In her

article, Angier essentially acts as an intelligent laypersons guide to the understanding of our

own bodies, using real world examples as well as scientific facts and statistics to back up her

argument. After all, who in the real world knew they could feel something that sticks up from a

surface the diameter of a bacterial cell?

Angier, Natalie. Primal, Acute and Easily Duped: our Sense of Touch. Editorial. New York

Times. New York Times, 9 December 2008. Web. 17 December 2008.