Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Graves reports that her interactions with lab director Edward MacDonald
(a pseudonym) stimulated him to do his science “aloud.” This provided her with
several opportunities to record the development of analogies and metaphors.
She noted varying degrees of success in the application of metaphors and analogies
to the task of interpreting experimental data. Normally, MacDonald would sit at the
computer, revising and deleting, until he had the most unambiguous text for the
purpose of communicating research findings. Graves
in-depth analysis of several
episodes of experimental work by MacDonald and his research team, demonstrates
the epistemic contribution of rhetoric in a number of instances. Most of her
observations pertain to the re-interpretation of experimental findings in the course
of preparing an article draft for publication. She shows how such discussions
were often coupled with refinements to the lab
'
s research strategy.
'
discussion of the use of analogy,
metaphor and metonymy
15
in the research process is consistent with previous work
in this area; while there are several instances to draw upon, only two will be noted.
The first instance confirms Mary Hesse
To conclude this section I note that Graves
'
s(
1980
) understanding of the function
of analogy in science research: MacDonald first predicts and later confirms a
particular phenomenon. The analogy he draws between hoodoos and an amorphous
silicon nitride superlattice cross-section, “establishes three known terms with the
purpose of predicting a fourth unknown term” (Graves
2005
, 102).
In contrast with those who focus on the discursive qualities of science but not its
practice, and those who focus on its practice but not on its rhetoric, Graves focuses
on the role of rhetoric in the process of inquiry (Graves
2005
, 2). In so doing, she
clarifies one aspect of the role of metaphor in concept formation in and through the
process of grappling with data and models. The key link in this process is the act of
invention
wherein novelty is introduced to the practice of science by “mangling”
data, theory and interpretation. The “mangle of practice,”
16
as Andrew Pickering
calls it characterizes the concrete practice of lab bench science. As a quantum
physicist, Pickering
'
s(
1984
) research experience with quarks led him to reflect on
the practice of science and the articulation of the mangle. He summarizes the
process:
'
modeling has an important real-time structure, with contours of cultural extension being
determined by the emergence of resistances, and by the success or failure of
'
accommo-
dations
'
to resistance
...
This temporal structuring of practice as a dialectic of resistance
and accommodation is, in the first instance, what I have come to call the mangle of practice.
(Pickering
1995
, xi)
15
Graves focuses more of her analysis on the lab
s use of metonyms than on metaphors, however,
the case has been made in section 1 above, that the various genera of non-literal usages of language
actually
function metaphorically
, even if they are not identical in form to metaphors. Kuhn
'
s
'
(
1977
,
1979
) and Cassirer
s(
1953
) discussions of this idea are found in Sects.
9.5
and
9.6
, below.
'
16
Pickering
s seemingly odd choice of this term harks back to old-time clothes washing machines
which had no spin cycle. Instead, wet clothing were put through the ringer and the resulting
“mangle” consisted of diverse items of damp clothing pressed into a single, flat, apparently
continuous plank.
'
