Creative comparisons

Making science familiar through language

One of my publications:

Taber, Keith S. (2025) Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts. With an introductory essay.

Download: Creative Comparisons: Making Science Familiar through Language.

Executive summary


This document offers an illustrative selection of examples from the range of ways people try to explain science concepts through language using analogies and various figures of speech. Such tactics can be very useful given that many scientific ideas are abstract and cannot be simply demonstrated. Whether an example is effective or not depends on the aptness of the comparison made, as perceived by the audience (readers or listeners), so it can be challenging to devise effective examples; especially when addressing a diverse audience. Moreover, inherently, an analogy or other comparison is not quite the same as the thing being explained, so such comparisons will 'map' in some regards and not others.

The use of such comparisons may be best seen as an introductory tactic, which is to be followed up in more detail once familiarity with the new idea is established. At least, that is the case in teaching, and may also apply in contexts such as popular science books; but, this may not always be possible when examples are used in some forms of science communication (such as a one-off interview on a radio programme or podcast, or a brief news report or press release).

There is also an important distinction between whether the comparison being used is intended to offer a technically correct understanding, or merely to give someone an impression that they have a feel for the gist of an idea. Usually in teaching the intention is to provide some objective level of understanding, and not just a subjective impression of making sense. But, a technically correct understanding may not always be the primary objective in some forms of science communication.

I make a number of distinctions in this document according to the nature of the language used – for example, whether a comparison is made explicit, or is simply 'smuggled' in without being marked. In the introduction I explain the distinctions I am using to classify comparisons as simile, metaphor, and analogy (distinctions which cannot always be readily applied definitively), along with examples I have classified as anthropomorphism, teleology and personification. I discuss boundaries and shifts between these categories.

The catalogue is hardly exhaustive – I have only recently started collating examples I notice and I am coming across new examples all the time. It draws on a range of sources including journalism, popular science writing, and scientists' own writings and talks. There are also some examples of analogies devised for use in formal teaching. (By necessity, these are from publicly accessible sources, whereas many teachers use creative analogies in their classrooms that are only known to them and their students). These examples are not presented as exemplars of good practice (evaluating that would depend on how the intended audience makes sense of them) but rather as illustrative of the pervasiveness and range of the examples that someone who reads about science and/or listens to broadcasts about science might be exposed to. I do think there are some excellent and insightful examples here, but I include others I am less impressed by (and a few I am not sure I understand myself). I hope that in the Introduction I offer some insight into how someone might judge the use of comparisons, and then in the Catalogue listing itself I provide a broad range of examples from across the natural sciences for a reader's consideration.

Image showing organisation of document
Organisation of the material in 'Creative Comparisons'

Contents:

Download: Creative Comparisons: Making Science Familiar through Language.

facebookShare on Facebook
TwitterTweet