Tooltip Categories: Comparisons

Comparisons with science concepts / phenomena

information technology is the twist in the Möbius strip

An example of metaphor used in writing about science:

"Information technology constitutes the twist in the Möbius strip that takes us from arguments internal to a field (how is the past conceptualised in the case of a historical science like geology) to its exterior (how is information about the past stored)."

Geoffrey C. Bowker

Bowker, G. C. (2005). Memory Practices in the Sciences. The MIT Press.

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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.

inference uses forceps

An example of metaphor in scientific writing:

"Inferential power is the last formal trait to be considered here: it is the capacity formulae have of giving rise to further formulae – with the assistance of a logical or mathematical forceps."

Mario Bunge

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

(I assume the reference here is not to the pliers used in general surergy, but the particular type of birthing forceps sometimes used to guide the baby's head during assisted delivery for a difficult birth.)

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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.

oxygen jumps onto hydrogen and carbon

An example of metaphor in popular science writing:

"To get the raw materials for life, we need to start with basic constituents like carbon and hydrogen and turn them into progressively more complex molecules. But you can't do that if there's plenty of oxygen around, because it jumps onto the hydrogen to make water (H2O), and onto the carbon to make carbon dioxide (CO2), and everything stops there"

Andrew May

May, A. (2019) Astrobiology. The Search for Life Elsewhere in the Universe

This metaphor seems a little anthropomorphic to me, as 'jumping' seems to imply some kind of deliberate, as we as enthusiastic, act?

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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.

Read about anthropomorphism

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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.

a scientist sends forth groping feelers of thoughts

An example of metaphor used by a scientist:

"…when the pioneer in science sends forth the groping feelers of his [or her] thoughts, he [or she] must have a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by an artistically creative imagination."

Max Planck

Plank, M. (1947/1949). The meaning and limits of exact science (F. Gaynor, Trans.). In Scientific Autobiography and other papers (pp. 80-120). Philosophical Library.

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Read about examples of science metaphors

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.

energy levels are atomic fingerprints

An example of a metaphor in popular science writing:

"Chemical elements are made of atoms, and one of the fingerprints of a specific type of element is the set of energy levels occupied by the electrons inside its atoms."

Andrew May

May, A. (2019). Astrobiology. The Search for Life Elsewhere in the Universe. Icon Books Ltd.

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

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.

phlogiston was the wrong road

An historical example of metaphor and analogy in scientific writing:

"It may be divided, 1st, into the period of the alchemists, a lamentable epoch in the annals of intellectual wandering; 2dly, that of the phlogistic doctrines of Beccher and Stahl, in which, as if to prove the perversity of the human mind, of two possible roads the wrong was chosen; and a theory obtained universal credence on the strength of an induction, valid as such, but wrongly interpreted, which is negatived, in every instance, by an appeal to the balance."

Sir John Frederick William Herschel

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

The alchemists were metaphorically wandering about.

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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.

Chemists had a choice of two roads and chose phlogiston theory, which was the wrong choice (implicitly the other road was the oxygen theory of combustion).

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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.

spectral lines are atomic signatures

An example of a metaphor in popular science writing:

"…neutral [atomic] hydrogen gas…generates a prominent spectral line at wavelength of 21 cm. 'Spectral lines' are characteristic signatures produced by different types of atom…"

Andrew May

May, A. (2019). Astrobiology. The Search for Life Elsewhere in the Universe. Icon Books Ltd.

Arguably this use of 'signature' his so widespread this might be considered a 'dead metaphor'.

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Read about examples of science metaphors

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.

fossils are wrecks of nature

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

"These wrecks of a former state of nature, thus wonderfully preserved (like ancient medals and inscriptions in the ruins of an empire), afford a sort of rude chronology, by whose aid the successive depositions of the strata in which they are found may be marked out in epochs more or less definitely terminated, and each characterized by some peculiarity which enables us to recognise the deposits of any period, in whatever part of the world they may be found."

Sir John Frederick William Herschel

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

Fossils are not literally 'wrecks' (i.e., shipwrecks), so this is a metaphor.

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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.

Preservation "like" ancient medals and inscriptions can be consideeed 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.

This comparisons can also be understood as an analogy, as the 'wreck', the fossil, survives like ancient artefacts that are intact among the ruins of an empire (the deceased organism, other parts of which have ben degraded and destroyed).

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land vertebrates are a small branch

An example of metaphor in popular science writing:

"Despite the enormous diversity of life on Earth, it all belongs to the same evolutionary tree. Species that are close to each other on that tree may look different, because they're suited to dissimilar environments, but they still have underlying features in common. If you say 'animal' to someone, they're most likely to think of a land vertebrate – anything from a frog to an elephant – yet that's really only a small branch of the tree of life…"

Andrew May

Andrew May (2019) Astrobiology: The Search for Life Elsewhere in the Universe

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

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.

facts are illiterate

An example of a metaphor in writng about science:

"The expression [scientific fact], though common, should be avoided because facts are susceptible to scientific treatment but, by themselves, they are illiterate. Facts are neither scientific nor unscientific: they just are."

Mario Bunge

Bunge, M. (2017/1998). Philosophy of Science. Volume 2: From explanation to justification (Revised ed.). Routledge.

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

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.

an experiment is a torch

An example of a metaphor used in writing about science:

"…scientific experiment is a torch in the search for pattern."

Mario Bunge

Bunge, M. (2017/1998). Philosophy of Science. Volume 2: From explanation to justification (Revised ed.). Routledge.

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

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.

stars may have retinues of planets

An example of a metaphor used in popular science writing:

"The concept of extraterrestrial life is inextricably tied to our modern-day picture of the universe, in which the stars are distant suns, many of them – like our own Sun – with a retinue of planets orbiting around them."

Andrew May

Andrew May (2019) Astrobiology: The Search for Life Elsewhere in the Universe

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

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.

This could be considered an anthropomorphic metaphor, as in its literal sense only a person can have a retinue.

Read about anthropomorphism

Read examples of anthropomorphism in science

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.