An example of an analogy used by a scientist to support an argument:
"THIS Spanish marble may be considered as a species of pudding-stone, being formed of calcareous gravel…The gravel of which this marble is composed, consists of fragments of other marbles of different kinds. Among these, are different species of oolites marble, some shell marbles, and some composed of a chalky substance, or of undistinguishable parts. But it appears, that all these different marbles had been consolidated or made hard, then broken into fragments, rolled and worn by attrition, and thus collected together, along with some sand or small siliceous bodies, into one mass. Lastly, This compound body is consolidated in such a manner as to give the most distinct evidence, that this had been executed by the operation of heat or simple fusion.
THE proof I have is this, That besides the general conformation of those hard bodies, so as to be perfectly adapted to each other's shape, there is, in some places, a mutual indentation of the different pieces of gravel into each other; an indentation which resembles perfectly that junction of the different bones of the cranium, called sutures, and which must have necessarily required a mixture of those bodies while in a soft or fluid state."
James Hutton (1788) Theory of the Earth
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.
