An historical example of an analogy used by a scientist:
"Bodies of very differing Natures, being put together, like the Wheels, and other peices [sic] of a Watch, and by their connection acquiring a new Texture, and so new Qualities, may, without having recourse to a substantial Form, compose such a new Concrete, as may as well deserve to have a substantial Form attributed to it, by virtue of that new Disposition of its parts, as other Bodies that are said to be endow'd therewith"…"
Robert Boyle
"we can little better give an account of the phaenomena [sic] of many bodies, by knowing what ingredients composed them, than we can explain the operations of a watch, by knowing how many, and of what metals the balance, the wheels, the chain, and other parts are made of"
Robert Boyle
Quoted in: Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino (2020) The Chemical Philosophy of Robert Boyle. Mechanicism, Chymical Atoms, and Emergence
An example of an analogy used to explain a scientific idea:
"Once the concept of intelligibility has been thus quantitated and elucidated at the same time, it is rather easy to construct a hypothesis concerning the intelligibly of a message after a certain number of repetitions: the mathematical theory of probability acts as a nest for the hatching of the factual hypothesis. Similarly the theoretical biologist will use physical theories for the formation of biological hypotheses and the historian may use sociological theories for the formation of historical hypotheses. This procedure, of letting a theory of a different species do the work of hatching a hypotheses, may be termed the cuckoo technique.
…Scientific hypotheses are not legitimate or illegitimate on account of their origin but in the strength of their tests, both empirical and theoretical: they are given test certificates rather than birth certificates."
Mario Bunge
Bunge, M. (2017/1998). Philosophy of Science. Volume 1: From problem to theory. Routledge. (1967)
An example of a hypothesis used to explain a scientific idea:
"The problem 'Which comes first, the hypothesis (H) or the observation (O)?' is soluble; as is the problem, 'Which comes first, the hen (H) or the egg (O)?'. The reply to the latter is , 'An earlier kind of egg'; to the former, 'An earlier kind of hypothesis'."
Sir Karl Popper
Popper, K. R. (1989). Conjectures and Refutations. The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (5th ed.). Routledge. (First edition, 1963)
An example of an analogy used by a scientist:
"..the acorn forms numerous buds, from every one of which emerges an organ subject…All organ subjects with their organ melodies join together to form the symphony of the organism of the oak…The process of heightened subjectification of the cell tone to organ melody to organism symphony stands in direct contradiction to any mechanical process that represents the effect of one object on another object.
… As in the composition of a duet, the two voices have to be composed for each other note for note, point for point, the meaning factors in Nature stand in a contrapunctual relation to the meaning utilisers."
Jakob von Uexküll
Uexküll, J. v. (2010). A Foray into the Worlds of Animals (J. D. O'Neil, Trans.). In A Foray into the Worlds of Animals; with, A Theory of Meaning (pp. 39-135). University of Minnesota Press. (1934).
An example of an analogy used by a scientist:
"By this formulation one reduced the whole mechanics of gravitation to the solution of a single system of covariant partial differential equations. … But it is similar to a building, one wing of which is made of fine marble (left part of the equation), but the other wing of which is built of low-grade wood (right side of equation)."
Albert Einstein
Einstein, Albert (1936/1994) Physics and reality. In Ideas and Opinions, New York: The Modern Library.
An example of an analogy used to explain a scientific idea:
"the Under-ground World is a well fram'd House, with distinct rooms, Cellars, and Store-Houses, by great Art and Wisdom fitted together; and not, as many think, a confused and jumbled heap or Chaos of things, as it were, of Stones, Bricks, Wood, and other Materials, as the rubbish of a decayed House, or an House not yet Made."
Athanasius Kircher {1602 – 1680, polymath}
Quoted in: Burns, W. E. (2019). Knowledge and Power. Science in World History (2nd ed.). Routledge.
An example of an analogy to explain science"
"…nowhere in the natural world is the linguistic character of specification more clearly in evidence than in the genetic code of an organism, which as I have noted before, constitutes a text recorded in a four letter alphabet. The genetic code is thus a written text imprinted on DNA."
Wolfgang Smith
Smith, W. (2015). Ancient Wisdom and Modern Misconceptions. A critique of contemporary scientism. Angelico Press / Sophia Perennis
An example of an analogy used by a scientist:
"The genes are arranged in the chromosomes in linear series, roughly comparable to a string of pearls."
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Bertalanffy, L. v. (1952/2014). Problems of Life. An evaluation of modern biological thought. Mansfield Centre. (New York: Wiley. 1952)
An example of an analogy used to explain science:
"Experiment, by enriching the set of naturally occurring facts, is apt to disclose deep and unsuspected aspects of things – as when a friend is asked to risk something."
Mario Bunge
Bunge, M. (2017/1998). Philosophy of Science. Volume 2: From explanation to justification (Revised ed.). Routledge. (1967)
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An example of an analogy used to explain science:
"The tree of life is a venerable mode of representation of our knowledge about life, its origins and development. Life starts at the root, the single-celled protoplasm, and then claws its way up the tree until it pinnacles at Homer Simpson."
Geoffrey C. Bowker
Bowker, G. C. (2005). Memory practices in the sciences. The MIT Press.
An analogy used by a scientist:
"To give an intuitive understanding of the Doppler effect, assume we have a swimmer moving away from the shore, so that the waves seem to reach him more quickly. More precisely, their apparent frequency (apparent, since the frequency with which they break on the beach remains constant) increases. As he returns to the shore, he moves in a sense with the waves, so that their apparent frequency is reduced. If we assume that there is in the sea a fixed source of waves (the action of the wind against the current on the water surface), it is the speed of the swimmer in relation to this source that determines the change of frequency."
Hubert Krivine
Krivine, H. (2015). The Earth. From myths to knowledge [La Terre, des myths au savoir] (D. Fernbach, Trans.). Verso. (2011)
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An example of an analogy used by a scientist:
"If the individual may be compared to a soccer player and the thought collective [e.g. group of scientists engaged in dialogue] to the soccer team trained for cooperation, the cognition would be the progress of the game. Can an adequate report of this progress be made by examining the individual kicks one by one? The whole game would lose its meaning completely."
Ludwik Fleck
Fleck, L. (1979). Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact [Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. Einführung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkollektiv] (F. Bradley & T. J. Trenn, Trans.; T. J. Trenn & R. K. Merton, Eds.). The University of Chicago Press. (1935)
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