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Science and metaphor aren't just for Lakoff and Johnson anymore (okay, they never were, but Metaphors We Live By (1980) was the first thing to pop in my head). From the Toronto Star comes a story, "It's Like This, You See", about the topic. I'll quote their header:
The ability to think metaphorically isn't reserved for poets. Scientists do it, too, using everyday analogies to expand their understanding of the physical world and share their knowledge with peers
The story hits on string theory and Darwin and Velcro and the Greeks. And includes this nice quote from Jan Zwicky, at UBC (I wonder if Dave knows Zwicky?),
"Those who think metaphorically are enabled to think truly because the shape of their thinking echoes the shape of the world."
And the brief article doesn't make a mess of the difference between metaphor, analogy, and simile, as I seem to be doing. Or, I'm making a mess of it like a one-year-old with a cupcake. No, that sucks. I'm messing it up as a crow messes up your windshield. That's just worse. Let me back out of this.
Back on message: I've referred before to the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts, and I'll link to them again, just to say that Science and Metaphor is such a fascinating subject, and it's been a subject of scholarly study for decades now, and SLSA is maybe the place where you'd find it the most.
And now to my point: I wonder what dominant metaphors people use in their daily work, to make sense of their research and writing, or to explain to others?
Comments
I met Jan at a recent workshop I attended (mentioned previously), and it was particularily wonderful to hear her read her work. She's actually at the University of Victoria - Department of Philosophy, I think.
Regarding metaphor and the like: I find most of what I try to do as a science communicator, revolves around these things. They just seem to be the path of less resistance when trying to explain what might otherwise is a complex or dry (or both) topic.
Posted by: David Ng | August 1, 2006 4:57 PM
(Victoria, UBC ... it's all in Canadia, right?)
But I wonder more: not just that you use metaphors when describing your work to non-geneticists, but that you use them in your genetics work itself. What metaphors there? Even in the complexity of an academic presentation you would use metaphor to some degree, no?
Posted by: Benjamin Cohen | August 2, 2006 8:40 AM
It's definitely an interesting phenomenon, and I explored it here.. What I really wonder about, though, is whether this is a science-specific phenomenon or, more likely, the use of analogy is a general and fundamental cognitive device used universally by humans.
One interesting point about the article, though, is that it introduces the subject by talking about metaphor, but then spends the bulk of its space exploring analogy. That might undermine the author's thesis that the use of analogy in science is a poetic endeavor, rather than just a logical one.
Posted by: Nick Anthis | August 2, 2006 1:54 PM