nature has great laboratories

Categories: Comparisons

An historical example of metaphor in science writing:

"Indeed, in the great laboratories of nature it can hardly be doubted that almost every kind of chemical process is going forwards, by which compounds of every description are continually forming."

Sir John F. W. Herschel

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

[Note: The laboratory, where the scientist intervenes in 'nature' in a controlled way, is normally contrasted with the 'natural' state.]

Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.