An example of a scientific concept used (negatively) as a simile,
"The 'natural laboratory' notion has been equally pernicious, not only because the analogy is false – what kind of laboratory is it where none of the parameters are manipulable? – but because it leads to a notion that the data derived from ethnographic studies are purer, or more fundamental, or more solid, or less conditioned (the most favoured word is 'elementary') than those derived from other sorts of social enquiry…
The methodological problem which the microscopic nature of ethnography presents is both real and critical. But it is not to be resolved by regarding a remote locality as the world in a teacup or as the sociological equivalent of a cloud chamber."
Clifford Geertz (2000) Thick description: toward an interpretative theory of culture, in The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays. 2nd Edition.
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