Category: Metaphors
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Metaphor, alchemy and lessons from the 17th century
Philip Ball has just published a magnificent book on the history of alchemy: Alchemy: An Illustrated History of Elixirs, Experiments, and the Birth of Modern Science. This made me think about metaphor, of course, given how central metaphorical language was to alchemical practice. In a sense, metaphor is alchemy, metaphorically speaking, as it transmutes two…
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Erving Goffman: Memories, method and metaphors
If you do sociology or, indeed, any social science whatsoever, you’ll come across the work of Erving Goffman. I have done too but never engaged with it as much as I should have done. This was brought back to me when I talked with somebody who once shared a taxi-ride with Goffman and chatted with…
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AI winter and AI bubble: Historical and metaphorical reflections
I have followed the emergence of recent developments in AI from the end of 2022 onwards, marked by the launch of OpenAI‘s AI chatbot ChatGPT. It’s now the middle of 2025 and a LOT has happened in this space. From being a niche and nerdy topic, AI has become a topic discussed across society. Recently, I…
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Situational metaphors, satire and sense-making
I was idly perusing Bluesky on 13 August when I read this exchange: “This evening, a fire truck was coming from the opposite direction, sirens blaring, lights blazing. There was an obstinate car that refused to make way. I later realized it was a Waymo driverless car. It didn’t know better. I hope that clueless…
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Let there be light!
We recently visited Derby and, for the first time in forty years, I actually went into the Cathedral. It doesn’t look very prepossessing from the outside, but boy the inside is great. It is full of light. It was built in 1725 and reflects and interacts with the ideas and values of the Enlightenment era. I…
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The Making Science Public blog: An introduction
I have now said farewell several times to my old university blogging platform, but I haven’t really started building up a new readership here. Newbies to the blog might wonder what the old Making Science Public blog was all about; what topics it covered before venturing to press the subscribe button….. As a gentle introduction…
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Synthesising genomes: Future promises, past metaphors
Yesterday morning I was packing for a holiday and briefly listened to the Today programme on Radio 4, just at the time that Pallab Ghosh was talking about a new initiative funded by the Wellcome Trust, namely a new Synthetic Human Genome (SynHG) project. I didn’t really have time to listen or read about it…
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Geoengineering and metaphors, 2009 to 2025: Continuity and change
Since around 2006, I have been interested in speculations about geoengineering, that is, attempts to deal with climate change by directly intervening in the planet’s atmosphere, oceans, or land. Such interventions include pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or dampening solar radiation. In the UK there have been three inflection points in reflections about such…
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The (not) de-extinct dire wolf: Metaphors, myths and magic
This post is a collaboration between Brigitte Nerlich and Kate Roach, both retired social scientists with interests in science, culture and society. *** I (Brigitte) first heard about the dire wolf in a post by the science writer Carl Zimmer linking to an article he had written for the New York Times. I had never…
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Compound weather: Some linguistic musings
You might have heard of a ‘compound fracture’ or of ‘compound interest’ or even, if you are a linguist, of a ‘compound noun’ (nouns consisting of more than one noun). But have you come across ‘compound weather’? I recently came across this expression when looking at some extreme weather disasters which were compounded by compound…
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