An example of the use of science concepts as metaphors:
"…it does make the view of anthropological analysis as the conceptual manipulation of discovered facts, a logical reconstruction of a mere reality, seem rather lame. To set forth symmetrical crystals of significance, purified of the material complexity in which they were located, and then attribute their existence to autogenous principles of order, universal properties of the human mind, or vast, a priori weltsanchauungen [worldviews], is to pretend a science that does not exist and imagine a reality that cannot be found."
Clifford Geertz (2000) Thick description: toward an interpretative theory of culture, in The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays. (2nd Edition)
Geertz uses a scientific metaphor to discuss the nature and limits of anthropology.
