An example of everyday comparisons and anthropomorphism (and/or teleology) in public science discourse:
"It's been estimated, not by myself, that there are a trillion bacteriophages for every grain of sand on the planet….
So the phages themselves are essentially a piece of genetic information so that could be DNA or RNA, that's wrapped into a sort of protein coat, a protective jacket if you like. And phages range anywhere from 24 to 200 billionths of a metre [or nanometres] in size…so to sort of put that into some perspective, you could fit between five hundred and four thousand of them across the diameter of a human hair, and they are regulating bacterial populations, both within our bodies, but also really importantly within, across the environment as well. So, what they are very good at doing is regulating and controlling and shaping bacterial populations, making sure we do not see bacterial dominance occur."
Prof. James Ebdon
James Ebdon (Professor of Environmental Microbiology at the University of Brighton) was talking on an episode ('Bacteriophages') of 'In Our Time'
There are two quotidian comparisons here relating something of an unfamiliar scale (the numbers and sizes of phages) to what listeners can readily imagine (sand on earth, hair), as well as the metaphor of the protein coat or jacket.
The phrasing here also seems to suggest either that bacteriophages deliberately control bacterial populations (which would be anthropomorphic, talking of them in the way one would of human agents) or that they they have a purpose within the scheme of nature (teleology).
Read examples of anthropomorphism in science
Read about teleology in science
Read examples of teleological (pseudo)explanations for scientific pheneomena
[Please be aware that a word may have different nuances, or even a different meaning, according to context.]« Back to Index
