Categories: Comparisons
An example of metaphor used to discredit a scientific theory (the idea that the species found on isolated islands had arived by chance from continents separated by sea):
"It has been objected to Mr Darwin's theory – of Oceanic Islands having never been connected with the mainland – that this would imply that their animal population was a matter of chance; it has been termed the 'flotsam and jetsam theory', and it has been maintained that nature does not work by the chapter of accidents. But in the case which I have here described, we have the most positive evidence that such has been the mode of peopling the islands."
Alfred Russel Wallace
Wallace, A. R. (1869). Malay Archipelago
[Please be aware that a word may have different nuances, or even a different meaning, according to context.]« Back to Index
