An example of an analogy used in popular science writing:
"To be sure, the complexity of living molecules [sic] makes the probability of their accidental formation extremely small, and we can compare it with the probability of putting together a jigsaw puzzle by simple shaking the separate pieces in their box with the hope that they will accidentally arrange themselves in the proper way."
George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.
Read examples of scientific analogies
Many examples of science analogies are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.
[For this analogy to work, one would need the jigsaw pieces shaken in a large enough box for the whole puzzle to be laid out – usually jigsaw puzzle boxes have a much smaller base surface area than the completed puzzle.]
