Comparisons – Page 58 – Science-Education-Research

the path to knowledge must be made smooth and beaten and often ascended and descended

An historical example of the use of metaphor in science writing:

"the successful process of scientific enquiry demands continually the alternate use of both the inductive and deductive method. The path by which we rise to knowledge must be made smooth and beaten in its lower steps, and often ascended and descended, before we can scale our way to any eminence, much less climb to the summit. The achievement is too great for a single effort; stations must be established, and communications kept open with all below…"

"In such cases the inductive and deductive methods of enquiry may be said to go hand in hand, the one verifying the conclusions deduced by the other; and the combination of experiment and theory, which may thus be brought to bear in such cases, forms an engine of discovery infinitely more powerful than either taken separately."
Sir John F. W. Herschel

Herschel, J. F. W. (1830). Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy.

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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.

treasures are concealed beneath Nature's unbroken soil

An historical example of metaphor in science writing:

"…the great work of turning up [Nature's] hitherto unbroken soil, and exposing the treasures so long concealed."
Sir John F. W. Herschel

Herschel, J. F. W. (1830). Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy.

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science is a great building

An example of metaphor in scence writing:

"The totality of these connections [of the elementary concepts of everyday thinking with complexes of sense experiences] – none of which is expressible in conceptual terms – is the only thing which differentiates the great building which is science from a logical but empty scheme of concepts."
Albert Einstein

Einstein, A. (1994). Physics and reality (S. Bargmann, Trans.). In Ideas and Opinions. The Modern Library. (First published: 1936)

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Saturn may have devoured his children

An historical example of metaphor in science writing.

"Has Saturn, perhaps, devoured his own children?"
Galileo Galilei

Quoted in: Moore, P. (1994). The Great Astronomical Revolution. 1534-1687 and the Space Age epilogue. Albion Publishing.

Galileo reported seeing two moons of Saturn (like the four he had observed around Jupiter), one each side – but later found they could no longer be observed. He was actually seeing the rings through a microscope that was not able to give a sharp image.

Saturn's rings become harder to detect when not seen from Earth at an oblique angle.

Traditionally, the planet Saturn was personified as a male person, associated with a mythical god. In myth, the god Saturn did devour his children, being afraid of a prophecy that one would come to overthrow him.

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

all reference-molluscs are equally valid

An example of metaphor in science writing

"This non-rigid reference-body, which might appropriately be termed a 'reference-mollusc', is the main equivalent to a Gaussian four-dimensional co-ordinate system chosen arbitrarily. … The general principle of relativity requires that all these molluscs can be used as reference-bodies with equal right and equal success in the formulation of the general laws of nature; the laws themselves must be quite independent of the choice of mollusc."
Einstein, A. (2004). Relativity. The special and the general theory. (R. W. Lawson, Trans.). The Folio Society. (1916)

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In introducing an edition of Einstein's work, Roger Penrose see this as an analogy:

"He is perhaps at his most awkward (and even repetitive) when describing the roles of coordinate systems and frames of reference, using the curious and confusing analogy of a mollusc (or 'reference mollusc' – his German word being Bezugsmolluske), indicating that he apparently thought of a coordinate system as a physical thing, swimming around like some soft marine invertebrate which could change its shape with time."
Roger Penrose (Introduction to 'Relativity. The special and the general theory')

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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.

science provides nourishment for reasoning beings

An example of metaphor in writing about science:

"Man is a reasonable being; and as such, receives from science his proper food and nourishment…"
David Hume

Hume, D. (1748). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

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comets are the fluff of the solar system

An example of simile in popular science writing:

"While the dirty snowball analogy is useful, as we discussed, another good way to think about comets is as the fluff of the Solar System: this helps to describe their fragile texture, something that is directly inherited from the environment in which they formed."
Natalie Starkey

Starkey, N. (2018). Catching Stardust. Comets, asteroids and the birth of the solar system. Bloomsbury Sigma.

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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.

lawfulness is the carrot that keeps science going

An example of metaphors in writing about science:

"What ground is there to accept the principle of lawfulness: might it not be just the carrot that keeps science going?
… the search for law – the marrow of scientific research…the principle of lawfulness, as usually understood, is far from being hollow and there is no advantage to emptying it….
And no science lover could sensibly reject this protective and programmatic hypothesis, because to kill the principle of lawfulness would be a worse crime than killing the golden egg hen: it is not just a piece of knowledge but a motor of knowledge."
Mario Bunge

Bunge, M. (2017/1998). Philosophy of Science. Volume 1: From problem to theory (Revised ed.). Routledge.

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philosophy is part of the scaffolding employed in constructing scientific buildings

An example of extended metaphor used in writing about science:

"Scientific knowledge contains no philosophical assumptions. From this it is often concluded that scientific research has neither philosophical presuppositions nor a philosophical import, whence science and philosophy would be water-tight compartments. But this is a hurried conclusion. Philosophy may not be found in the finished scientific buildings…but it is part of the scaffolding employed in their construction."
Mario Bunge

Bunge, M. (2017/1998). Philosophy of Science. Volume 1: From problem to theory (Revised ed.). Routledge.

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receptor on cell surface is like a magic key

An example of simile in popular science writing:

"TNF (tumour necrosis factor) superfamily-mediated cell death involves a receptor (from the THN superfamily) on the surface of the infected cell, which is like a magic key capable of unlocking death when turned by the right hand."
Catherine Carver

Carver, C. (2017). Immune. How your body defends and protects you. Bloomsbury Sigma. (Read 'Disease and immunity – a biological myth')

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a high-frequency wave is like a Toblerone bar

An example of simile (and metaphor) in popular science writing:

"A high-frequency wave has tall peaks that occur close together, like a particularly spiky Toblerone bar. Its low-frequency cousin unwinds more gently, similar in form to a loosely coiled snake."
Dr Camilla Pang

Pang, C. (2020) Explaining Humans. What science can teach us about life, love and relationships. Viking

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austenite does not want to change crystal structure

An example of simile and anthropomorphism in public science discourse:

"the very tough crystal that I mentioned earlier, with atoms of iron at the corners and at the face centres, that's actually called austenite, and normally it exists only at very high temperatures, so over 900 degrees centigrade. If you cool the steel, or do things to it, then it will change.

And the picture I think people should have in mind when you talk about these crystalline arrangements. It's a crystal lattice, like a grid-work, you know, where the atoms are arranged in these equally spaced points. So it's a pattern, in effect, it's like wall paper, and that pattern needs to adapt to whatever temperature, pressure, etc, you subject it to. So, austenite transforms from a high temperature to the body-centred cubic structure but some of it remains, it does not want to change."
Professor Sir Harry Bhadeshia

Professor Sir Harry Bhadeshia (Emeritus Tata Steel Professor of Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge; Professor of Metallurgy, Queen Mary University of London) was interviewed on an episode ('Sir Harry Bhadeshia on the choreography of metals') of BBC's The Life Scientific

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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.

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