This page introduces the use of metaphor in discussing science. The list of examples of metaphors from various sources (scientists' writing, science journalism, popular science books, etc.) has now been moved to a separate page.
A metaphor is a figure of speech where one thing is said to be another – as an implicit way of suggesting a comparison. (It is implicit, as the person hearing/reading the metaphor is expected to realise that the statement is not meant literally, but poetically.)
"We are dealing here with metaphors because the analogies are not made explicit and indeed the initial adoption of such usage may well have occurred without any conscious attempt at analogy"
Taber, 2013, p.1378 [Download this article.]
A metaphor is then different from a simile, as in a simile the comparison is made explicit (by saying one thing is 'like' / 'as' another). [See also the note at the foot of this page.]
Metaphors may be used as thinking and communication techniques. In teaching, comparisons such as metaphors may be used as one way to 'make the unfamiliar familiar'. Generally, in teaching, it would be better to use simile rather than metaphor to ensure that learners appreciate that a comparison (not an identity or equivalence) is being suggested. (Good advice to teachers might be that one cane never be too explicit about what you think you are communicating!)
Read more about 'Making the unfamiliar familiar'
Comparisons such as metaphors and similes can be found in teaching and textbooks, but also in learner's own thinking, in scientists' own work, and in popular accounts of science.
Antrhropomorphic metaphors
Teaching and science writing often includes statements about innanimate objects of non-human organisms phrased as though they are alive (they make decisions, have wants and needs, etc.) The trope is called anthropomorphism: imbuing non-human entities with human feelings and thoughts. Usually this is meant metaphorically, and such examples can be seen as a sub-class of mertaphors. Examples of anthropomorhpic references can be found here:
Read about anthropomorphism in public science discourse
Extended metaphor
Sometimes a meaphor is extended through a series of linked references. In the following example the idiom of getting stuck in a rut (when a wheel is caught in a channel, stopping a vehicle steeering in some other direction) is compared to suffering from mental illness: mental illness is like getting into a rut. Here this comparison is developed by referring to being on a specific track, and the depth of the ruts, which may have even been dug by the sufferer her/them/himself.
"In mental illness we often go down a track, you know, implicitly or unconsciously, deepen the rut in that track, we get stuck, and what psychedelics do is free up the system, and what the system is your mind, and so that stuckness and the depth of that stuckness can be sort of opened up, there can be a freeing action, but with that freedom comes a requirement to be supported when the mind opens up that way, because perhaps there's been defensive quality to digging those ruts as deep as they've been…"
Dr Robin Carhart-Harris (University of California)
Examples of science metaphors:
I have collected a wide selection of examples of metaphors used to introduce/explain scientific ideas, and an index of these can be found on another page on this site:
Read examples of metaphors for scientific concepts
Metaphors that are anthropomorphic (such that science is explained in terms of non-human entities having human motivations, conceptions, etc.) Are listed separately.
Read examples of science anthtropomorphisms
There are also lists of other types of comprisons used to explain science:
Read examples of similes for scientific concepts
Read examples of analogies for scientific concepts
Black holes have to lose their 'hair'
Cells are cities buzzing with activity
Cells are fantastical living machines
Cells of the innate immune system are the first responder cells
Corners of our genome that are 'on steriods'
Dutch physicist H.A. Lorentz was Einstein's John the Baptist
Fossil turbulence and fossil galaxy groups
Lodestones (magnetic stones) feed on iron
Matter is fed into black holes
T cells are door to door wanderers that can detect even the whiff of an invader
The brain's ability to naturally produce dopamine gets fried
Was the stellar burp really a sneeze? Pulling back the veil on an astronomical metaphor
Note on analogies, similes and metaphors.
In practice the precise demarcations between similes, metaphors (and anthropomorphisms) and analogies may not be absolutely clear. I have tried to follow the rule that if a comparison is set out to make a structural mapping clear (even if this is not spelt out as a mapping: e.g., an atom with its electrons is like a sun with its planets) this counts as an analogy. Where I do not think a comparison is an analogy, but the comparison is made explicit ("…as if…", "…like…": e.g., the atom, like a tiny solar system) I consider this a simile. When the audience is left to spot a comparison (rather than a literal identity) is being made (e.g., the oxygen atom, this tiny solar system) I class this a metaphor.
Anthropomorphism may be seen as a particular kind of metaphor where a metaphorical feature implies a non-human entity has human attributes (e.g., meteors can be impetuous).
I reserve the right to reassign some of these comparisons in due course!
