An example of an historical analogy:
"…Helmont distinguishes between 'mere apposition' of particles and true 'wedlock'. The first of these is a 'bare commingling', which Helmont contrasts to a genuine 'marriage' that occurs when substances are deeply connected… Where modern chemistry speaks of compounds, in which recoverable elements are held together by chemical bonds, Helmont speaks of 'indissoluble marriages'."
Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino
Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino (2020) The Chemical Philosophy of Robert Boyle. Mechanicism, Chymical Atoms, and Emergence
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An example of an analogy used by a scientist:
"If an external organ harbours a complete reflex arc, one can properly call this a 'reflex person'. Sea urchins have a great number of such reflex persons which perform their reflex tasks without central direction, each on its own….Although many reflex persons act together, they work completely independently of one another….One can therefore speak of a 'reflex republic' in which, in spite of the complete autonomy of all reflex persons, a total civil peace reigns, for the tender suction feet of the sea urchin are never fallen upon by the biting, rasping pincers, which would otherwise grab any other approaching object."
Jakob von Uexküll
Uexküll, J. v. (1934/2010). A Foray into the Worlds of Animals
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An analogy used by a scientist:
"To know the height of the mainmast does not suffice for calculating the age of the captain. When you have measured every bit of wood in the ship you will have many equations, but you will know his age no better. All your measurements bearing only on your bits of wood can reveal to you nothing except concerning these bits of wood. Just so your experiments, however numerous they may be, bearing only on the relations of bodies to one another, will reveal to us nothing about the mutual relations of the various parts of space."
Henri Poincaré
Poincaré, H. (2015). Science and Hypothesis
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An example of an analogy from the history of science:
"Ibn Sina was the first Muslim scientist to revise the impetus theory of John Philoponus, an attempt to explain why a projectile continues to move after it is fired. He described this impetus as a 'borrowed power' given to the projectile by the source of motion, 'just as heat is given to water by a fire'."
John Freely
Freely, J. (2012). Before Galileo. The birth of modern science in Medieval Europe.
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An example of an analogy incorporating a metaphor:
"What strikes me as objectionable in the postmodernist outlook, on the other hand, is its pervasive relativism, which attacks truth the way an acid eats up metal."
Wolfgang Smith
Smith, W. (2015). Ancient Wisdom and Modern Misconceptions. A critique of contemporary scientism. Angelico Press / Sophia Perennis
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An example of a metaphor used to explain science:
"If only I had some liquid hydrogen…as charcoal cooled in it eats up almost every molecule of gas it can get at."
Henry G. J. Moseley
Henry G. J. Moseley {1887 – 1915, physicist}
An example of metaphor in public science discourse:
"[A T cell] goes around sniffing other cells, basically touching them and trying to find out whether they have been altered in some way, particularly if they are carrying inside them a virus or any other kind of pathogen, and if it finds this pathogen or a virus in your body, it is going to go and kill that virus or pathogen"
Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee, Columbia University
Read "Cells are buzzing cities that are balloons with harpoons"
An example of a metaphor used to explain science:
"The way to master chance is to face it and to discover its laws rather than to deny its objective existence. Chance is an evil ghost only if regarded as lawless chaos or as an ultimate, not further analysable, mode of being."
Mario Bunge
Bunge, M. (2017/1998). Philosophy of Science. Volume 1: From problem to theory. Routledge.
An example of a metaphor used to explain science:
"Atoms, we now know, are the bricks of our physical environment."
Michael Brooks
From Brooks, M. (2017). The Quantum Astrologer's Handbook
An example of an analogy used to explain science
"…Transmutations made by the convening of divers[e] colours are not real; for when the difform Rays are again severed [separated], they will exhibit the very same colours, which they did before they entered the composition; as you see, Blew and Yellow powders, when finely mixed, appear to the naked eye Green, and yet the colours of the Component corpuscles are not thereby really transmuted, but only blended. For, when viewed with a good Microscope, they still appear Blew and Yellow interspersedly."
Isaac Newton
Philosophical Transactions February 19th 167172
A Letter of Mr. Isaac Newton, Professor of the Mathematicks in the University of Cambridge; containing his New Theory about Light and Colors: sent by the Author to the Publisher from Cambridge, Febr. 6. 167172; in order to be communicated to the R. Society.
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An example of an analogy used to explain the history of science:
"…in the invention of the method of fluxions, or, as it is now more generally called, the differential calculus, [Isaac Newton's genius] has supplied a means of discovery, bearing the same proportion to the methods previously in use, that the steam-engine does to the mechanical powers employed before its invention."
John Frederick William Herschel
John F. W. Herschel (1830) Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy
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An example of an analogy used to explain science:
"The black box resembles the annual report that the company manager submits to the shareholders: both the theory and the report speak about incomes and outcomes, net gains and net losses, and even of overall-trends; but they do not explain the processes at work (in the company or in the box)."
Mario Bunge
Bunge, M. (2017/1998). Philosophy of Science. Volume 1: From problem to theory. Routledge. (1967)
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