Metaphors in Biology: More than Heuristic Devices

Jennifer Runke
University of Calgary

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     Last modified: February 15, 2005
     Presentation date: 07/14/2005 4:00 PM in ROZH 107
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Abstract
Although no one disputes the heuristic value of metaphor in biology, metaphors seem contrary to some of its goals, namely precision and clarity. Some theorists, following Richard Boyd, argue for the elimination of metaphors. However eliminating metaphors once they have been used in theory construction has adverse consequences. For example, when the “shifting balance theory of evolution” was introduced in mathematical form by Sewall Wright its complicated mathematics prevented it from being widely received. But when the same theory was later introduced using the metaphor “the adaptive landscape,” it was taken up by evolutionists, botanists and palaeontologists as background for their own research (Ruse 2000). On previous accounts of metaphor, the “adaptive landscape” is merely a way in which some abstract and difficult phenomenon is made easier to understand but can, at least in principle, be substituted by a literal explanation. However, in this case the metaphor itself, not its underlying mathematics, led to new and important developments in evolutionary biology. Thus the role that the adaptive landscape played in evolutionary biology was independent of its mathematical formalization, and so is not merely shorthand for the complicated mathematics. What is needed is an adequate account of metaphor that explains the robust role metaphors play in theory construction.

Michael Bradie (1999), basing his account on Max Black’s interactionist account of metaphor, argues that metaphors are uneliminable because by combining the implicational structures of two disparate phenomena, metaphors suggest further points of similarity. Implicational structures comprise analogical reasoning, which allows for the abstraction from known similarities which further similarities are likely. So, according to Bradie, metaphors are irreducible to a literal explication because we would lose this similarity generating feature.

The problem with Bradie’s account is two-fold. First, an account of metaphors that is spelled out solely in terms of analogical reasoning does not avoid the objection that eventually - given enough time - the ways in which two things are similar can be exhausted, thereby allowing for the elimination of metaphors in biology. The second problem is more substantive. It is my contention that metaphors do more than suggest new points of similarity; they also affect how we see phenomena. I will argue that our perception of a phenomenon depends in part on what we find significant about it, so if metaphors affect which aspects of a phenomenon we find significant, then our perception of that phenomenon will reflect the change in our conceptualization of the phenomenon. One consequence of recognizing the role perception plays in understanding a metaphor is that metaphors are found to be irreducible to a literal paraphrase because although the implicational structure may be captured, the way we perceive the phenomenon remains elusive to formalization. Thus, if we try to replace a metaphor with a literal explication, instead of obtaining precision and clarity, we obscure the perspective with which we view the phenomenon. Moreover, recognizing the importance of how we view phenomena can explain the constitutive role metaphors play in a theory development.