Steven Pinker in his book The Stuff of Thought wrote, "Rather than occasionally reaching for a metaphor to communicate, to a very large extent communication is the use of metaphor." (emphasis is mine)
An abundance of research has appeared over the past twenty years about metaphorical and analogical reasoning. One researcher looks at the group of people we would think least likely to use analogy or metaphor in their work: SCIENTISTS.
What's fascinating is that these brainy, hard-working folk not only use analogy and metaphor - apparently when they do it assists problem-solving and innovation. Kevin Niall Dunbar studies scientists as they are working and has found that they will use analogies at the rate of three to fifteen per hour in laboratory discussions with other scientists.
From a communication standpoint I have argued from my own research that metaphor and analogy are as important as facts or emotions in creating meaning, conveying context, explaining ideas, persuading, and other communication categories, especially leadership communication. Dunbar's research suggests that helping others learn to generate and use analogy and metaphor not helps them communicate better, but enables them to think better.
Pinker suggests, "It could be that 95 percent of our speech is metaphorical, if you go back far enough in language."
There are those who oppose the use of metaphor in science, most notably Susan Oyama. I've read her books Evolution's Eye and the Ontogeny of Information. She argues that metaphors for all their uses can lead us astray in our analogical reasoning and therefore we should abandon them.
The problem with her thoughtful commentary (if you read her books, have a dictionary handy - it's hard but worthwhile slogging to get through some of her analysis) is that our brains can't stop producing metaphor and analogy because that's how they work. And in the light of Dunbar's research the benefits far exceed the limitations.
One final note about Dunbar's research. He shows that the metaphorical structures scientists use who know a lot about a particular field of study are different than the ones they use to convey those ideas to those outside their field of knowledge. This is a very important finding. It means the better science and engineering communicators are more gifted or better skilled at using analogy and metaphor to convey ideas to outsiders.
My own observation is that this is true of any field of expertise and is not strictly limited to scientists.
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