Misleading Metaphors Research Articles

Business Spirits

What are the co-making processes that blur the boundaries between religion and economy? How can we move past misleading metaphors and analogies that reify the false distinction between sacred and secular or that frame religion as pure essences corrupted by financialization? Inspired by McLaughlin et al.’s (2020) call for increased attention to the “corporate form of religion,” we outline how common social structural and aspirational elements undergird shared processes of both religion-making and corporation-making. Drawing on ethnographic and historical data from contributing authors to this Special Issue, we hypothesize that the reification of religion and business is context dependent, benefits regimes of power, and is open to contestation; and that some intentional communities, purposeful or not, have from their inception been understood as neither religious nor corporate. We marshal global data from diverse case studies to explore the modes of relatedness between religions and corporations, on the one hand, and the context-specific boundary-making practices that reify a false binary, on the other.

Cell wall is a dead metaphor

It was recently suggested to end the usage of the term cell wall in microbiology (including prokaryotes and fungi) because it represented an inappropriate and potentially misleading metaphor (Casadevall and Gow, 2022). The analysis of the arguments for such a move from the viewpoint of the plant physiologist indicates that the suggestion is based on misunderstandings, first, of the early history of cell biology and its terminology; second, of the development of modern concepts of cell wall function since the late 19th century; and third, of the nature of metaphors and their role in scientific communication. We conclude that misconceptions concerning cell walls may arise due to pedagogical shortcomings in introducing students to our technical terminology rather than from the fact that part of this terminology originated from metaphors.

Seeing Pink

Seeing Pink

On the Misappropriation of Spatial Metaphors in Online Learning

In online educational systems, teachers often replicate pedagogical methods, and online institutions replicate systems and structures used by their in-person counterparts, the only purpose of which was to solve problems created by having to teach in a physical environment. Likewise, virtual learning environments often attempt to replicate features of their physical counterparts, thereby weakly replicating in software the problems that in-person teachers had to solve. This has contributed to a vicious circle of problem creation and problem solving that benefits no one. In this paper I argue that the term ‘environment’ is a dangerously misleading metaphor for the online systems we build to support learning, that leads to poor pedagogical choices and weak digital solutions. I propose an alternative metaphor of infrastructure and services that can enable more flexible, learner-driven, and digitally native ways of designing systems (including the tools, pedagogies, and structures) to support learning.

Tennis Courts in the Human Body: A Review of the Misleading Metaphor in Medical Literature.

Medical literature is home to fancy descriptions, poetic metaphors, and ingenious comparisons. However, some comparisons can disguise the knowledge gap. Large surfaces in the human body, like the alveolar surface for gas exchange, villi for food absorption, and the endothelial lining of blood vessels, are frequently compared to a “tennis court.”This narrative review explores this metaphor in detail, the discrepancies and factual inaccuracies across medical literature. It highlights the inappropriate use of Euclidean geometry and introduces fractal geometry, a language to define roughness.

Apt Analogies and Misleading Metaphors: “Co-Evolution” and Other Biological Terms in Scientific Theories of Religious Evolution

ABSTRACT The paper discusses the definitions of “co-evolution” in biology and in scientific theories of religious evolution as an example for their use of biological terms. Sometimes this use is motivated by the vision of a general theory of macro-level evolution. There is a valid analogy between the co-evolution of biological species and “gene-culture co-evolution” in religious evolution. But the analogy does not refer to identical processes, and it might turn into a mere metaphor. This conclusion pertains to other terms describing religious evolution in correspondence to evolutionary biology.

Covert Progression as Causal Complexity

Covert Progression as Causal Complexity

In and out of the STEM pipeline – a longitudinal study of a misleading metaphor

ABSTRACTThe metaphor of the leaking pipeline is sometimes used to suggest that some students are lost for STEM as they advance through the educational system. This paper follows a cohort of upper-secondary school students with an interest in STEM from 18 months before their completion of upper-secondary until three years after their completion. Adopting a mixed-methods design, it follows the students' reflections and interests concerning their choice of higher education programme within and/or outside STEM. Only 22% of the students expressed the same interest during the whole period, and 56% changed between different groups of studies, e.g. between STEM and HEALTH. The students' trajectories showed that the leaking-pipeline metaphor is misleading because it suggests a linear and one-way movement, while there were students moving in as well as out of STEM trajectories. The students’ reflections showed identity issues at the level of ego identity, the personal identity and the social identity (Coté and Levine). Particular incidents in the students’ lives and in the outreach programme they were involved in sparked interests and reflections. These incidents should be considered as elements in a continuous reflection concerning who they are and where they would like to go rather than as critical moments.

Brandenburg in An Era of Populism: Risk Analysis in the First Amendment

We live in an era of populism, characterized by political polarization, inciting speech on social media, and an escalation in hate crimes. The regulatory framework for direct incitement to imminent lawless action established fifty years ago in Brandenburg is showing signs of severe strain. One of the central frailties of Brandenburg’s three-part test is the lack of guidance on how courts should evaluate the probability that an inciting speech act will cause an imminent offense. In the absence of clear direction on analyzing risk, judges often rely on outdated heuristics and misleading metaphors. This article is the first to draw on behavioral research to construct a systematic evidence-based framework for assessing the likelihood that inciting speech will result in imminent lawless action. This matrix is then applied to the fact pattern in Sines v. Kessler, a civil suit arising from the events in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

'Brain Disorders', by Henry Calderwood (1879).

Henry Calderwood, a nineteenth-century Scottish philosopher interested in madness, published in 1879 an important work on the interaction between philosophy of mind, the nascent neurosciences and mental disease. Holding a spiritual view of the mind, he considered the phrase 'mental disease' (as Feuchtersleben had in 1845) to be but a misleading metaphor. His analysis of the research work of Ferrier, Clouston, Crichton-Browne, Maudsley, Tuke, Sankey, etc., is detailed, and his views are correct on the very limited explanatory power that their findings had for the understanding of madness. Calderwood's conceptual contribution deserves to be added to the growing list of nineteenth-century writers who started the construction of a veritable 'philosophy of alienism' (now called 'philosophy of psychiatry').

Terrorism as Disease: Beware of Misleading Metaphors.

The author focuses on the misappropriation of medical terminology for metaphoric speech concerning terrorism and politics. He comments on how politicians would compare the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) to viruses while domestic terrorism would be described as a cancer. He mentions how this has negative repercussions including advocating the quarantine of migrants. He suggests that the public health community needs to step in and stop the use of disease metaphors in geopolitics.

Updating the descriptive biopsychosocial approach to fit into a formal person-centered dynamic coherence model - Part II: Applications and some more basics

There is an undeniable difference of approaches in science and humanities. Any model that claims to unify these different approaches must prove to be in accordance with both the objectivistic and the subject-oriented thinking. In the following article we first check our models applicability in two areas that belong to our individual research expertise: biochemistry (TF) and narratology (DSM). Then we try to understand how – be it on a microscopic, e. g. biochemical, be it on a macroscopic body and mind level – distinct coherences manage to survive in a partially or mostly random environment. As an example we address children who grow up in an environment that lacks coherence and hence predictability. Studies have shown that these children are forced to improve their detective “mind-reading” ability. So, with regard to even minute signs that might help them to get information about coherences within their families system their sensitivity is more than average. But on the other hand, and on the long run, these children may have a higher risk to later develop a psychic disorder such as a “borderline syndrome”. The idea behind our approach in that instance is that human beings consist of coherences and to “survive” (in a both literal, bodily and a metaphoric, mental and spiritual sense) correspondingly are in need for continuous supportive feed in form of outside coherences. Each word that could be established in a babies or child’s memory then is and acts as a little organiser to recognise and understand outside and later inside coherences. This starts as soon as it can be reliably used for attributions, and it gradually results in establishing a “narrative self”. Both the bodily and the narrative self are in permanent danger of being corrupted or even deleted by random, unpredictable and unforeseen processes. To survive, not only the material basis must be kept alive, but also the correct timing of its individual processes. To destroy an interior timing may be much easier than to destroy a material basis. One only has to interrupt internal or external communication to achieve this goal. In the following, we discuss the prerequisites and formal aspects of a successful interior and external timing. Then, we first try to overcome misleading spatial metaphors as used for aspects that are mainly time-based, and then differentiate two types of timing in information processing: a “quick and dirty” and a slow and refined one. The latter differentiation is discussed in Daniel Kahnemans well known book “Thinking, Fast and Slow. To understand how a person perceives, interprets and acts we, to our believe, need to differentiate between these two basically different systems. Doing so, we gradually come to an understanding of personhood and subjectivity that is in accordance with our basic model, and also, though taking aspects like narrativity into account, with our bodily processing.

The lure and the limits of dialogue

Over the last two decades, the metaphor of ‘dialogue’ has become a common way of characterizing the relationship between courts and legislatures under bills of rights. Following an examination of the role of ‘dialogue’ in debates about the Canadian Charter and the UK Human Rights Act, this article will argue that dialogue is a misleading metaphor, which we should abandon in our constitutional discourse. While it may have contributed some potential insights, its overall effect has been to distort our understanding of the relationship between courts and legislatures under bills of rights. In the scholarly debates surrounding dialogue, the lure of the metaphor obscured its limits. This article examines some of the pathologies which afflicted the debate about dialogue in comparative constitutional discourse, detailing some of the many distortions of dialogue.

Are flowers red in teeth and claw? Exploitation barriers and the antagonist nature of mutualisms

The romantic perception of plant–animal mutualisms as a cooperative endeavour has been shattered in the last decades. While the classic theory of plant–pollinator coevolution assumed that partner coevolution is largely mutualistic, an increasing appreciation of the inherent conflict of interests between such partners has led to the realization that genes that confer a reproductive advantage to plants may have negative effects on their pollinators (and vice versa), giving rise to an apparent paradox: that antagonistic processes may drive coevolution among mutualistic partners. Under this new paradigm, mutualistic partners are bound by mutual interest but shaped by “selfish” antagonistic processes. Exploitation barriers mediated by resource competition among pollinators are a key element of this paradigm. Exploitation barriers involve traits such as tubular corollas, red flowers, toxic or deterrent rewards, and attractants of floral predators. Exploitation barriers result in resource partitioning, increasing floral fidelity of favoured pollinators and therefore plant fitness; but they often entail a physiological, behavioural or developmental cost for such favoured pollinators. Resource partitioning mediated by exploitation barriers is a very powerful driver of floral diversification, robust to variation in pollinator assemblages; hence, it may contribute to elucidating the occurrence of co-evolutionary changes in multi-species contexts. Exploitation barriers provide also a mechanistic basis for trait-based modelling of interaction networks, and represent a reason for caution in assuming fixed interaction identity or strength when modelling such networks (e.g. in rarefaction procedures used to estimate secondary extinctions). We propose to replace the misleading metaphor that depicts flowers and pollinators as cooperative partners by a metaphor in which plants and pollinator are traders, seeking to obtain different services from each other in complete disregard for the benefit of their mutualistic partner.

HIV/AIDS among Brazil’s Prison Populations: Significant Political, Public Health, And Human Rights Implications for Failing to Provide Prisoners with Adequate Care

There are significant ethical, public health, and human rights implications for failing to provide detainees and prisoners with adequate safety and health care, particularly with regard to infectious diseases such as HIV and AIDS. In other words, there is an ethical obligation to earmark resources, even when scarce, toward the study and care of prisoners. At the same time, however, how disease surveillance and treatment are carried out in this population—especially with regard to infectious diseases associated with stigmatized or illegal behaviors—raises a different set of ethical issues: For example, obtaining an accurate picture of disease prevalence and incidence rates in prisons as well as effectively treating prisoners may place prisoners at increased risk of physical and legal harms. Thus, both failing to advocate for the incarcerated as well as advocating in a poorly considered way are cause for concern. Additionally, misleading metaphors surrounding prisons and penal systems and the marginalization of prisoners and certain socioeconomic classes lead to a perpetuation of diseases such as HIV and AIDS throughout societies in general. Brazil provides a telling example in that, despite the fact that it has one of the most innovative and proactive HIV/AIDS programs in the world and its Constitution frames health care as a right of all, its imprisoned populations, like those in other countries, shoulder the double burden of being both from lower socioeconomic classes with limited access to resources and at markedly higher risk of contracting HIV than those in the general population. Appropriate solutions will require political, institutional, and cultural changes that assure equitable access to medical care, avenues for real rehabilitation, and safe environments within and beyond prison walls, as well as actions to reduce legal prohibitions against drug use, destigmatize sexual behaviors, and resolve entrenched social inequities.

Science-Policy Dialogues for Water Security: Addressing Vulnerability and Adaptation to Global Change in the Arid Americas

www.EnvironmEntmagazinE.org voLUmE 54 nUmBEr 3 Climate change and watersupply uncertainty coupled with mounting human demands for water are straining the availability and quality of freshwater in much of the world. These twin forces cause a palpable rise in societal vulnerability, here considered as susceptibility to adverse effects of global environmental change.1 The vulnerability of water supplies (or, water vulnerability) places human communities at risk for exposure,2 or change,3 and thereby creates huge adaptation challenges. The actions being taken to reduce risks and capitalize on opportunities are considered adaptation or adaptive strategies.4 The most sensitive and vulnerable communities are those that face the greatest exposure and are most limited in their capacity to adapt. Rapidly growing and ever wealthier urban populations, expanding agribusinesses, diverse industries, extensive mining, power generation, and tourism often deprive water from or degrade its quality for use by marginalized populations of smallholder farmers and the urban poor, as well as for ecosystems along streams, lakes, and coasts recognized as biodiversity hotspots in the arid landscape. The arid5 Americas—as characterized by the southwestern United States, northwestern Mexico, north-central Chile and Argentina, and northeastern Brazil—manifest the just-described challenges especially well.6 This article focuses on two areas where our research team has been developing science-policy adaptation strategies: (1) the Sonora-Arizona drylands shared by Mexico and the United States (See map at right), and (2) the drylands east and west of the Central Andes in Chile and Argentina (see map, page 32). In these areas water remains acutely limited even as drought and flood extremes increase, ecosystems are under growing pressure, and economic globalization drives water demand. These global-change conditions threaten the security of access to water. Yet the foregoing conditions prevail—with little regard for constraints to supply, insufficient understanding of vulnerability, and inadequate attention to adaptive measures.7 To the extent that such problems are attributable to human agency,8 there is evidence that effective policies and actions can alleviate some of the harm.9 Our article describes two interactive Science-Policy Dialogues for Water Security:

Abstract B2: Conceptual barriers in cancer prevention research

Abstract Neoplastic progression is an evolutionary process and cancer prevention is successful to the extent that it can impact that process, reducing the likelihood that premalignant cells will evolve invasive or metastatic phenotypes. Despite the centrality of somatic evolution in cancer progression, evolutionary tools and analyses have rarely been applied to the development and implementation of interventions to reduce cancer incidence. Conceptual barriers such as cognitive biases, misperceptions about the nature of cancer, or the use of misleading metaphors may interfere with the effective incorporation of evolutionary principles into cancer prevention and treatment. We analyzed cancer articles for evidence of several biases that are likely to interfere with evolutionary thinking and conducted surveys to measure these cognitive biases. We found evidence for several biases, including a failure to recognize the mutability of neoplasms. Further, our surveys indicated that respondents favor metaphors for cancer (as an invading enemy or parasite) that may bias towards overly aggressive interventions. By identifying cognitive barriers to the penetration of evolutionary principles in cancer research and prevention, we will be able to more effectively offset these biases and expand the conceptual framing of cancer so as to facilitate cancer prevention research, improve patient management and prevent over-treatment. Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2010;3(12 Suppl):B2.

Endgame: Britain, Russia and the Final Struggle for Central Asia by Jennifer s> Siegel (review)

REVIEWS 749 Siegel,Jennifer.Endgame. Britain, Russia andtheFinalStruggle for Central Asia. I. B. Tauris,LondonandNew York,2002. xviii + 273pp. Map.Notes. Bibliography. Index.?29.50. ALTHOUGH counter-factual, what-ifhistoryis currently verymuchin vogue, historians arestillexperiencing difficulty dispelling theauraofinevitability of conflictwhichsuffuses thevastmajority of secondary accountsof theperiod immediately precedingtheFirstWorldWar.Receivedwisdomstillinsists,for example,thatthe diplomaticprecipitation of the TripleEntenteof Britain, FranceandRussiabothunalterably determined themembership of therival campsoftheproactive TripleAllianceandreactiveTripleEntente,andmade theirmilitaryclashultimately unavoidable. A particular cognateassumption hassooftenbeenthatBritain andRussiamayhavetakenaninterminable time to resolvetheirnineteenth-century antagonisms andcementthe lastcrucial linkinthetriangular relationship oftheTripleEntentebuttheAnglo-Russian Conventionof I907 wasincontestably a triumphof strategicstatesmanship whichirreversibly contracted thefuturealliesoftheFirstWorld War. JenniferSiegel'sacademically meticulous studythrowssuchpresumptions aboutAnglo-Russian relationsintogravestdoubt.The globalimportance of what amounted to the longest front (or at least friction zone) in the pre-I9I4 world, stretchingfromthe Ottoman Empirein the westto the Chinese Empire to the east, is confidentlyand convincingly assertedin the face of a traditional Eurocentric historiography which has implicitly marginalized central Asia into an imperial sideshow. Each year-defined chapter examines AngloRussian relations over the three areas of Persia, Afghanistan and Tibet (typicallyin that orderand on thatrelativescaleof coverage)with an emphasis on a deterioration which was almost certainly teetering on the brink of total breakdownby mid-I914. Had the assassinationof ArchdukeFranzFerdinand occurred later than June 19I4 in Europe, the Triple Entente may well have already collapsed in Asia. Without Sarajevo, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Britain and Russia, far from still being firm allies, may have been at war over centralAsia by late 19 I4. Perhaps the only quarrel which might be picked with this intriguing and authoritative study is with its new (and presumably unironic) main title. In attempting to burnish the publication appeal of her Yale doctoral thesis (entitled 'Peaceful Penetration under Arms: Anglo-Russian Relations in Central Asia, 1907-I914'), Siegel may have chosen a misleading metaphor. Many British certainly feared that proven Russian expertise at chess might result in their being outplayed in the 'Great Game' in the East, the ultimate penalty being the loss of India, the 'Jewelin the Crown' of the BritishEmpire. But the term 'endgame' stronglysuggeststhe finalgoing-through-the-motions formalityphase in a match where the outcome has alreadybeen decided. This is assuredlynot the conclusion drawnby Siegel aboutAnglo-Russianrelations. On the contrary,there was no certaintyof outcome and indeed, both players still had everything to play for when European war intervened in 19 I4. Not only was the 'Endgame'to the traditional'GreatGame' not being played over 1907- I4, it is arguablethat the 'Final Struggle'is stillto be played out across Iraq, Iran,Afghanistanand Tibet almost a centurylater. 750 SEER, 8i, 4, 2003 But there can be no quibbling about the scholarly qualities and historiographical impact of this impressivemonograph. The comprehensive coverage of hitherto-unavailable,punctiliouslypresented primarysourcesfrom the state archivesof St Petersburgand Moscow, which fullydocuments the tsarist side of the Anglo-Russian relationship for the first time, would alone be enough to raise this study to the first order of importance in diplomatic history. Conscientiously integrated with official British documentation, the Russia material mined during Siegel's resourceful 'window of archival opportunity' reveals the I907 Convention not as a golden turning-point transformingpreviously-hostile Anglo-Russian relations but as a temporary tactical stand-off dictated by the near-revolutionarydomestic trauma which accompanied Russia'shumiliatingmilitarydebacle at the handsofJapan over I904-05. With Russia'songoing physical recovery and revivingpolitical selfconfidence , the Convention of I907 with the 'wearytitan' of the increasingly oil-obsessed BritishEmpire was preservedonly by theirjoint fear of German interference and eventually the fortuitouslytimely intervention of European war. As an investigation into the remorseless friction between two proudly expansionist but over-extended and therefore vulnerable Great Powers, Endgamemakes a magisterial and original contribution towards our reunderstandingof the worldwhich was to disappearwith the FirstWorldWar. Department ofHistogy RAYMOND PEARSON University ofUlster at Coleraine McReynolds, Louise. RussiaatPlay:Leisure Activities attheEndoftheTsarist Era. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, and London, 2003. x + 309 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Bibliographicalessay.Index. $36.50; /22.95. PLAY is a seriousbusiness,especiallyforhistorians.In herwell-researchedand stimulatingstudy, Louise McReynolds brings firmlyto our attention the late tsarist leisure industry and shows how it can deepen our understanding of Russian culture and society. The book's eight chapters cover five main areas of activity: theatre (both 'legitimate' and 'commercialized...

The links between urban and rural development

THIS IS THE second issue of Environment &Urbanization focusing on rural–urban linkages. The first, which came out in 1998, described the reliance of many low-income households on both rural-based and urban-based resources in constructing their livelihoods. But the majority of the papers also underlined the fact that this straddling of the rural–urban divide is usually ignored by policy makers, and that the rigid division between “rural” and “urban” on the part of sectoral strategies actually makes life more difficult for low-income groups. The papers in this issue show many reasons why it has become even less realistic for development specialists to separate into rural and urban camps. The notion of a “divide” has become a misleading metaphor, one that oversimplifies and even distorts the realities. As these papers demonstrate, the linkages and interactions have become an ever more intensive and important component of livelihoods and production systems in many areas – forming not so much a bridge over a divide as a complex web of connections in a landscape where much is neither “urban” nor “rural”, but has features of both, especially in the areas around urban centres or along the roads out of such centres (what can be termed the peri-urban interface). In addition, much of the rural population depends on urban centres for access to secondary schools, post and telephones, credit, agricultural extension services, farm equipment, hospitals and government services. Of course, there are still conflicts between rural and urban interests. But there are also conflicts between many urban interests and the needs of most of the urban population. There are also significant synergies between many rural and urban interests. Some factors can be generalized as having a key role in the increase in the scale of rural–urban linkages. Decreasing incomes from farming, especially for small-scale producers who, because of a lack of land, water or capital, are unable to intensify and switch to higher value crops, means that increasing numbers of rural residents engage in non-farm activities that are often located in urban centres. For those who continue farming, direct access to markets is essential in the wake of the demise of parastatal marketing boards – and markets are also usually located in urban centres. Better access to markets can increase farming incomes and encourage shifts to higher value crops or livestock. Population growth and distribution patterns affect the availability of good agricultural land and can contribute to rural residents moving out of farming. With the expansion of urban centres, land uses change from agricultural to residential and industrial, and in the peri-urban interface these processes go hand in hand with transformations in the livelihoods of different groups – with the poorest often losing out. Perhaps more significant than the absolute availability of natural resources in relation to population numbers and density are the mechanisms which regulate access to, and management of, such resources. These include land tenure systems and the role of local government in negotiating the priorities of different users and in providing a regulatory framework which safeguards the needs of the most vulnerable groups while, at the same time, making provision for the requirements of economic and population growth. Such mechanisms continue to call for attention, to

The landscapes of Australia

The Australian landscape is sometimes discussed as the stage or setting on which the events of Australian history have unfolded, but this is a misleading metaphor; first, because It implies a passive role for the ‘stage’ and, second, because it assumes that the landscape was simply ‘there’ waiting. However it was not like that at all, and the second assumption is a biophysical version of the doctrine of terra nullius, that the land was not owned — it was available, passively receptive and, in a sense, already ‘known’. The application of English words is itself a form of appropriation; it implies that rivers are rivers, plains are plains, forests are forests. Though they are not: Australian rivers, plains and forests, are nothing like the things to which these words are applied in Britain. Think of Salisbury Plain and the Nullarbor Plain, which stretches across a third of the continent along the southern margin; or the Thames and the Darling, nearly a 1000 km long, but often no more than a string of water holes. Australians also tend to impose their current knowledge of the landscape on the Europeans who were encountering it for the first time. For example, the school texts show the routes of the explorers on the maps of an explored land, but for the explorers themselves, the map stopped where they pitched camp each night, as Paul Carter reminds us in The Road to Botany Bay.1