Metaphor and Knowledge: The Challenges of Writing ScienceMetaphor and Knowledge offers a sweeping history of rhetoric and metaphor in science, delving into questions about how language constitutes knowledge. Weaving together insights from a group of scientists at the Santa Fe Institute as they shape the new interdisciplinary field of complexity science, Ken Baake shows the difficulty of writing science when word meanings are unsettled, and he analyzes the power of metaphor in science. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION THE PROBLEM WITH RULES AND WHY WORDS WILL NOT SIT STILL | 1 |
Using Music Theory to Explain How Metaphor Works in Science | 7 |
Structure of the Book | 13 |
What is the Santa Fe institute? | 18 |
A TECHNICAL THINK TANK | 25 |
Establishing Ethos With an Initial Impressions Report | 27 |
Capture the Excitement of Research But Avoid Hype | 31 |
What Happens When Technical Writers Cannot Find Their Bearings Toward an Audience | 36 |
Making Sloppy Ideas Rigorous | 99 |
No Rational Method of Having Good Ideas | 107 |
Who Intends the Bee to Be yellow? | 120 |
Emergence the Brain and Neural Networks | 133 |
Equilibrium and the Prisoners Dilemma | 138 |
SCIENCE WRITERS LOOKING FOR THEIR AUDIENCE | 149 |
Style and Eloquence in SFI Writing | 152 |
Writing for Scientists and the General Public | 160 |
METAPHOR CONSTITUTING OR DECORATING THEORY IN SCIENCE | 43 |
A Qualified Acceptance | 53 |
The Meaning of Metaphor | 55 |
How They Work | 62 |
Metaphor and Science | 68 |
Fear of Persuasion and Metaphoric Harmonics | 72 |
Rhetorical Alternatives to Metaphor in Science | 76 |
METAPHORS AND MATHEMATICS A SHARED TRADITION OF CONSTITUTING KNOWLEDGE IN SCIENCE | 79 |
The Metaphors of Information as the New Materiality | 82 |
Representing Reality | 85 |
Platonic Arguments for the Supremacy of Mathematics | 89 |
Metaphor for Understanding a NonAlgorithmic World | 93 |
Trying to Cross Disciplines | 172 |
COMPLEXITY AN ETYMOLOGY LEADING TO A DISCUSSION OF WHETHER IT IS A METAPHOR OR SOMETHING ELSE | 179 |
The Word Complex In the Oxford English Dictionary | 181 |
Complexity Arrives in Santa Fe | 191 |
The New Complexity Returns to Old Haunts | 197 |
Is Complexity a Metaphor? | 200 |
MANAGING METAPHOR HARMONICS AND OTHER CHALLENGES OF MAKING KNOWLEDGE IN SCIENCE | 207 |
Speak Carefully and Carry a Paradigm Shift | 209 |
| 223 | |
| 235 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
abstract agents argues argument Aristotle associations atoms audience behavior biologists biology brain Casti cells century cognition complex adaptive systems complexity science complexity theory concept Cowan debate define definition describe develop disciplines discourse economics eloquence emerged ence epideictic epistemology equilibrium example Fe Institute scientists fitness landscape Fontana SF function game theory Gell-Mann Hely Hence human ideas implies individual insights intentionality interact interdisciplinary interview Johnson Kauffman knowledge Lachmann language literal mathematical meaning metaphor harmonics metaphor in science molecules Murray Gell-Mann musical nature observation organism paradigm shift particles pattern perhaps phenomena philosophers physicist physics Platonic popular prisoner's dilemma problem questions reality representation reveals rhetoric of science rhetorical challenges rhetoricians rules Santa Fe Institute says science writing scientific semantic sense SFI scientists Shalizi signaling specific Stuart Kauffman style suggests technical writers term theorists tion tists trying understanding various word complexity