Comparisons – Page 30 – Science-Education-Research

scientists should be like bees and not ants or spiders

An example of an analogy used in discussing science

"He did not support a dead kind of empiricism; the empirics, he said, were like ants merely heaping up a collection of data. The natural philosophers still generally current in the world, however, were rather like spiders spinning their webs out of their own interior. He thought that the scientists ought to take up an intermediate position, like that of the bees, which extracted matter from the flowers and then refashioned it by their own efforts."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

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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.

scholastics' attack on Aristotelian teaching was like filling the gap in one jigsaw puzzle with a piece out of a different puzzle

An analogy used to explain the development of scientific ideas:

"…it was vain to attack the Aristotelian teaching merely at a single point – vain to attempt in one corner of the field to reinterpret motion by the theory of impetus as the Parisian scholastics had done – which was only like filling the gap in one jigsaw puzzle with a piece out of a different jigsaw puzzle altogether. What was needed was a large-scale change of design – the substitution of one highly dovetailed system for another and in a sense it appeared to be the case that the whole Aristotelian synthesis had to be overturned at once."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

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Impetus theory was an attempt to move beyond Aristotle's explanations of motion, but suggesting a projectile is initially given a certain amount of impetus which is exhausted as it proceeds. Many people today hold alternative conceptions of motion which reflect the impetus theory.

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Historical examples of alternative conceptions

Read about conceptions of Newton's first law (inertia)

planets were like the rear lamps on bicycles

An example of an analogy used to explain development in science:

"The obsession on the subject of circular motion was disappearing at this time [when Kepler was working out his model of the Solar System], however, for other reasons, and chiefly because the existence of the hard crystal spheres was ceasing to be credible. It had been the spheres, the various inner wheels of the vast celestial machine, that had enjoyed the happiness of circular motion, while the planet, recording the resultant effect of various compound movements, had been realised all the time to be pursuing a more irregular course. It was the circular motion of the spheres themselves that symbolised the perfection of the skies, while the planet was like the rear lamp of a bicycle – it might be the only thing that could actually be seen from the earth, and it dodged about in an irregular manner; but just as we know that it is really the man on the bicycle who matters, though we see nothing save the red light, so the celestial orbs had formed the essential machinery of the skies, though only the planet that rode on their shoulder was actually visible. Once the crystal spheres were eliminated, the circular motion ceased to be the thing that really mattered henceforward it was the actual path of the planet itself that fixed one's attention. It was as though the man on the bicycle had been proved not to exist, and the rear lamp, the red light, was discovered to be sailing on its own account in empty space. The world might be rid of the myth of circular motion, but it was faced with more difficult problems than ever with these lamps let loose and no bicycle to attach them to. If the skies were like this, men had to discover why they remained in any order at all – why the universe was not shattered by the senseless onrush and the uncontrollable collidings of countless billiard-balls."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

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The extract discusses the model of the universe in which each of the visible planets (and the Sun and Moon) was mounted in its separate crystalline sphere – the concentric spheres being centred on Earth. This model was widely accepted for centuries in much of the world. Today we would consider these ideas alternative conceptions (if not too fantastic to entertain).

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The reference to the spheres 'enjoying the happiness' of circular motion can be sen as an anthropomorphic metaphor.

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Many examples of anthropomorphism are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.

Kepler was like a child trying out different arrangements of wild flowers

An analogy about a scientist:

"In his attempt to disclose mathematical sympathies in the machinery of the skies [Johannes Kepler] tried at one moment to relate the planetary orbits to geometrical figures, and at another moment to make them correspond to musical notes. He was like the child who having picked a mass of wild flowers tries to arrange them into a posy this way, and then tries another way, exploring the possible combinations and harmonies."
Herbert Butterfield

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

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Protestantism had an elasticity

An example of a scientific concept used metaphorically:

"In the long run it was Protestantism which for semi-technical reasons had an elasticity that enabled it to make alliance with the scientific and the rationalist movements, however. That process in its turn greatly altered the character of Protestantism from the closing years of the seventeenth century, and changed it into the more liberalising movement of modern times."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

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Many examples of science metaphors are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.

venous blood behaves like a fluttering frightened hen

An example of metaphor and simile in writing about science:

"The predecessors of Harvey had observed by cuts and ligatures the flow of the blood in the veins towards the heart not towards the outer parts of the body as their theory always took for granted. But they were so dominated by Galen that they said the blood behaved irregularly when it was tortured by such experiments – rushing off in the wrong direction like a fluttering frightened hen."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

For a long period European medicine was dominated by the writings of Galen, which while an impressive body of work, include many historical notions that would now be seen as alternative conceptions. One of these was that blood moves in one sense – out from the heart, through the blood vessels, to the rest of the body. Harvey is widely recognised to have first convincing demonstrated blood circulation.

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The point being made in the extract is that the influence of Galen's teaching about medicine was so strong that observations that should have contradicted it were either missed or explained away. Blood in veins moving towards the heart was explained away by arguing that what was seen during dissection (or indeed vivisection – where we might consider the poor experimental subject being tortured, not the blood *) could not be considered to reflect what actually happened normally in a healthy subject (an argument which in general terms has merits).

'Tortured' can be seen as a metaphor – arguably an anthropomorphic metaphor as only a feeling being can suffer torture.

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The reference to the blood behaving like a fluttering frightened hen (which might run in a random direction) can be considered a simile.

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Many examples of science similes are listed in 'Creative Comparisons: Making Science Familiar through Language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.

* Vivisection, the dissection of still-living animals would allow observations while the heart was still actively pumping blood. While for long periods dissection of human corpses was banned in many countries (which has been argued to have delayed the development of knowledge of human anatomy and physiology) there are reports of human dissection, and even vivisection, being allowed when the subjects were condemned criminals.

scholars have a kind of magnet in the mind which tends to draw out data that confirms assumptions

An example of a simile drawing on a scientific phenomenon:

"Concerning some of the writers of the sixteenth century, it has been discovered that, though they talked of the importance of seeing things with one's own eyes, they still could not observe a tree or a scene in nature without noticing just those things which the classical writers had taught them to look for. When Machiavelli pretended to be drawing his conclusions from contemporary political events, he would still produce maxims drawn from one ancient thinker or another – he may have thought that he was making inferences from the data in front of him, but in reality he was selecting the data which illustrated the maxims previously existing in his mind. Similarly, the historical student, confronted with a mass of documentary material, has a kind of magnet in his mind which unless he is very careful will draw out of that material just the things which confirm the shape of the story as he assumed it to be before his researches began."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

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Venus sits on a sphere which rotates independently as it moves with a sphere that rotates around the earth

An example of an historical notion, no longer accepted in science.

"Dante explains how Venus goes round with the sphere which forms the third of the skies, but as this does not quite correspond to the phenomena, another sphere which revolves independently is fixed to the sphere of the third sky, and the planet rides on the back of the smaller sphere (sitting like a jewel there, says Dante), reflecting the light of the sun. But writers varied on this point, and we meet the view that the planet was rather like a knot in a piece of wood, or represented a mere thickening of the material that formed the whole celestial sphere – a sort of swelling that caught the sunlight and shone with special brilliance as a result."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London

The issue being addressed here (unconvincingly to a modern mind brought up to understand the planets as moving in ellipses around the Sun) is that observations of the motion of the planets did not seem to match the accepted cosmology – that the planets were embedded in crystalline spheres that were concentric with the earth, and moved in perfect circles. These two (seemingly ad hoc) explanations looked to save the phenomena by making what was seen consistent with what was believed.

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The comparisons here are presented as similes: Venus is like a jewel sitting on a subsidiary sphere, or like a knot in wood that stands out form the grain pattern.

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impetus lay in a projectile as heat stays in a red-hot poker after it has been taken from the fire

An example of an analogy used in the development of science:

"According to the view developed by these thinkers, the projectile was carried forward by an actual impetus which it had acquired and which bodies were capable of acquiring…this view made it possible for men to contemplate the continued motion of a body after the contact with the original mover had been lost. It was explained that the impetus lay in the body and continued there, as heat stays in a red-hot poker after it has been taken from the fire;

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Even the apostles of the new theory of impetus, however, regarded a projectile as moving in a straight line until the impetus had exhausted itself, and then quickly curving round to make a direct vertical drop to earth. They looked upon this impetus as a thing which gradually weakened and wore itself out, just as a poker grows cold when taken from the fire. Or, said Galileo, it was like the reverberations which go on in a bell long after it has been struck, but which gradually fade away."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged) G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

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Impetus theory was an attempt to explain the motion of objects, that preceded the modern conceptions of momentum and inertia.

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Historical examples of alternative conceptions

star is as transparent for neutrinos as a windowpane is for light

An example of an analogy used in popular science writing:

"It is clear from the description of the neutrino that it is just the right agent to remove the surplus energy form the interior of a contracting star, since the entire body of the star is just as transparent for neutrinos as a windowpane is for ordinary light."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

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convulsions occur in stars walking their last mile

An example of figurative language used in popular science writing:

"It must however be noticed here that the process of shrinking and cooling of the old stars which have used up all their vital hydrogen fuel does not always proceed in a quiet and orderly way, and that, walking their 'last mile', these dying stars are often subject to titanic convulsions as if revolting against their fate."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

Vital once meant necessary to life, but it has become metaphorically extended to anything that is considered essential in some context. Similarly, although stars are not alive, and so cannot die (so again these terms were originally metaphors), this has become accepted usage even in professional astronomy. (Read 'The passing of stars: Birth, death, and afterlife in the universe'). However, stars can only walk their last mile metaphorically. (The adjective 'Titanic' derives from the mythical giants the Titans, who also gave their name to titanium.)

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To say that a star was revolting against its fate would be anthropomorphic (as inanimate objects cannot revolt as this requires sentience, intention, motivation), but here Gamow uses this as a simile – it is as if…

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catalysts enable nuclear chain reaction

An example of analogy in science:

"Thus we see that the nuclei of carbon and nitrogen in our circular reaction chain are forever being regenerated, and act only as catalysts, as chemists would say…we may therefore describe the whole process as the transformation of hydrogen into helium as induced by high temperatures and aided by the catalytic action of carbon and nitrogen.

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Since all other possible reactions lead to results inconsistent with the astrophysical evidence, it should be definitely accepted that the carbon-nitrogen cycle represents the process mainly responsible for solar energy generation.

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In view of the basic part played in this process by carbon, there is something to be said after all for the primitive view that the Sun's heat came from coal; only we now know that the 'coal', instead of being a real fuel, plays the role of the legendary phoenix."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

Here the notion of a catalyst as a substance that is involved in, but not used up in, a chemical reaction is extended (by analogy) to nuclear reactions for a nuclide that is involved in, but not used up in, a nuclear process.

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The passage describes a theoretical mechanism by which nuclear fusions (and so energy release) can take place within the Sun. It s now believed that this process takes place in heavier stars but that within our Sun a different mechanism is the primary means of fusion/energy release. Gamow's argument that all other feasible mechanisms were inconsistent with the evidence, and therefore the carbon-nitrogen cycle should be definitely accepted proved to be misjudged.

Strictly, scientific claims are seem as provisional in the sense that they are always open to being revisited in the light of new evidence or new ways of thinking about the evidence. Scientific observations usually rely on technical apparatus and so depend on instruments being well-calibrated and working according to the assumed theory. It is always possible to find alternative explanations for any data set (even if this sometimes stretches credibility). Rhetoric which refers to absolutely certain knowledge, or proof beyond doubt, is inconsistent with our understanding of the nature of science.

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The idea that the Sun was an enormous ball of burning coal was once taken seriously by scientists (before nuclear processes were known) but would now be considered an alternative conception.

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Gamow reference to the 'coal' (actually carbon nuclides) playing the role of the Phoenix is not a normal metaphor as the reader would not make sense of it without knowing about the legend of the bird that would burst into flames, and then reappear resurrected from its own ashes. This may therefore be seen as using a form of idiom.

Read about communicating science through idioms