A Bridge is a Lie: How Metaphor Does Science

by Jeffery Donaldson

In the following paper, author of Missing Link: The Evolution of Metaphor and the Metaphor of Evolution (2015), Jeffery Donaldson, explores how science engages in productive analogy, while at the same time denigrating the “metaphoric initiative.” What can an understanding of poetics teach about science?

MERE METAPHOR?

Nothing brings home the flight of time like finishing a book. You smash the bottle of champagne against your title and set the whole thing afloat, whereupon it drifts from harbour, captainless, over the horizon and out of sight. Not that you notice right away. You’re out looking for new crafts. When my book on metaphoric process—Missing Link: The Evolution of Metaphor and the Metaphor of Evolution—came out in 2015, I had no clear idea of what the next project would be. I had said my thing: so far from being a merely decorative or handy language tool for tough ideas and expressions, metaphor was fundamental, all determining … and absolutely everywhere. The “metaphoric init…