The Scientist as an Analogical Reasoner: A Critique of the Metaphor Theory of Innovation

Summary

Recent, well-known explorations of the role of models in science suggest a theory of scientific innovation which links innovation to a creative extension of knowledge brought about by the invokation of a metaphor. At the same time, concrete evidence about actual procedures of scientific investigation have for the first time become available from anthropological observation studies of scientific laboratories. This paper draws upon one year of observations done in 1976—77 in a group working on chemical, microbiological, toxicological and technological aspects of plant proteins and plant protein generation at a research institute employing more than 300 scientists in Berkeley, Ca. and upon interviews done with scientists of various other groups at the same institute. The paper attempts to reconsider the role of metaphor in the light of the observer’s account of the research process in the laboratory, and in the light of the scientists’ accounts of research efforts they considered innovative. Both the scientists’ and the observer’s account suggest that reference to metaphor needs to be extended to include, in accordance with some earlier conceptual investigations, the more general phenomenon of analogical reasoning. At the same time they suggest that the metaphor- or analogy- theory needs to be restricted in its claim to account for innovation, and that innovation must be linked to the active constructions of the process of production and reproduction of research.