5 ms·
Misleading metaphors
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- siner 9y agoPaywalled article. If your connection is not super fast cancel loading of the page as soon as you see the article.
- NikolaeVarius 9y agoEasy way is to block JS
- dredmorbius 9y agohttps://outline.com https://outline.com or https://archive.is https://archive.is are also often useful.
- Owloid 9y agoDespite being paywall, the content is interesing and viewable by canceling the loading as siner posted.
- abrowne 9y agoOr use the "kill sticky headers" bookmarklet: https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/ https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/
- Owloid 9y agoThe ideas that apply to yourself are especially applicable. In regards to stress, I frequently went to relax after school by doing personal projects like a website. After hearing that stress was like a pressure, I assumed I had to set aside time to "destress." I played games instead and felt fine for it, but if I really regret stopping what I was doing.
- neom 9y agoI believe the author is saying that the contextual application of a metaphor can spur illogical thought? Yet it seems odd to limit an imaginative literary tool.
- amelius 9y agoAnalogies are similar (or should I say analogous?)
- harperlee 9y agoIf you liked this article, be sure to purchase and read "Methaphors we live by", by Lakoff (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34459.Metaphors_We_Live_By http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34459.Metaphors_We_Live_B...) It is a great little book that goes into much more detail and analysis of how humans use methaphors and analogy as models to understand the world around us. Highly recommended. And if you already read it, I for one would welcome further study on these lines if you know it!
- akud 9y agoThe prominence of metaphor to human cognition was put forth in Metaphors We Live By, by Lakoff and Johnson. A fantastic book. Anyone interested in the line of reasoning in the article here should read it.
- dahart 9y agoAre misleading metaphors the issue, or is it just that lots of the stories we tell are misleading? Strange article, it seems to negate itself at the end by pointing out that "declaring war" on things that aren't war is never true and only sometimes helpful. > “Calories in, calories out” is more than a banal restatement of the Law of Conservation of Energy: it is a metaphor casting the metabolism as akin to a current account. Weight gain is then simply a matter of depositing more than you withdraw. But that ignores the role of hormones and appetite; differences in the way different foods are metabolised and the way the body reacts to prolonged deprivation by hoarding fat and slowing down. No wonder diets rarely work Speaking of misleading stories, diets do work. People just don't stick to them because they're super difficult. We are hard-wired physiologically to crave food, and it can be near impossible socially to stick to a diet. It's not because something is wrong with the phrase "calories in, calories out". Which isn't even a metaphor, by the way, so why is this diatribe here? This specious argument is saying we should ignore the primary factor and instead worry about the margins. Person to person variance in caloric digestion is in the low percentages for almost everyone. Nearly everyone gets the same 230 calories from McDonalds French fries. Sure, someone might absorb a little more and get 245 and someone else might absorb a little less and get 215, but skipping them is an order of magnitude more effective for everyone.
- jimmaswell 9y agoI'm pretty sure this was their point, that stating it as simply "calories in calories out" makes it sound a lot easier than it actually is in practice.
- dahart 9y agoI could buy that, except that the clear implication was that diets don't work because of the language. The article plainly blamed the use of the phrase "calories in, calories out" as a major factor in why diets don't work. That's just not true, the caloric equation isn't why diets don't work, the caloric equation is precisely why diets do work. The phrase also is not the reason that people don't stick to diets either. Sticking to a reduced calorie diet is fighting our instincts and our habits and behaviors and social circles, not our language.
- thewayfarer 9y ago"Metaphors are like models, only with unclear responsibilities." --Nick Rowe, talking about the use of metaphors to describe economic models.
- abuteau 9y agoOther people that used that quote is Emanuel Derman. He's an interesting character (PHD in theoretical physics, Ex-Goldman Sachs Partner). He is the author of Models.Behaving.Badly: Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disaster, on Wall Street and in Life [1] and wrote a great paper on Metaphors, Models & Theories. I did a review of his paper [2], but some highlights: Theories: Tell us what something is. According to Derman, theories “deal with the world on its own terms, absolutely.” Models: Tell us what something is partially like. According to Derman, models are “reductions in dimensionality that always simplify and sweep dirt under the rug.” Metaphors: Models can be compared to Metaphors. Metaphors are relative descriptions that compare it to something similar, but better understood through theories or real life applications. "A model is a metaphor, not the thing itself. Good metaphors compare something we don’t understand, to something we think we do. Based on this, a model is simple and of limited applicability when compared to the real thing as it focuses on some parts rather than the whole. It is a caricature which overemphasizes some features at the expense of others." [1] http://bit.ly/dermanmodels http://bit.ly/dermanmodels [2] https://medium.com/pnr-paper/metaphors-models-theories-fb40639f0a21 https://medium.com/pnr-paper/metaphors-models-theories-fb406...
- lucio 9y agoMisleading article: 1. Dismiss stress, by badly redefining what stress is. 2. People "snapping": Just mention it, but do not explain why is a bad metaphor. Maybe he/she deleted the paragraph, maybe he/she do not care for a coherent article? 3. Dismiss healthy food 4. Do not understand DNA 5. more badly explained things 6. “war on drugs” - finally something, but this is PROPAGANDA not a bad metaphor. It is intentional. 7. "War on terror" - I this case, when "war on terror" is "war on ISIS" is not a bad metaphor, they've uniforms and a territory.
- Analemma_ 9y agoSince it's The Economist, I'm surprised they didn't mention one of the most common misleading metaphors I see floating around: that of equating sovereign debt to credit card or household debt. It's used constantly by both Internet commentators and politicians, and it needs to die as soon as possible, because it's completely wrong and leads you to policy conclusions that are the exact opposite of what you need to do.
- trendia 9y agoCan you provide an example of a policy decision that is (1) correct using sovereign debt analysis but (2) incorrect when using household debt analysis?
- Analemma_ 9y agoAvoiding austerity.
- DenisM 9y agoSeriously. Your reply is bordering on curt, but austerity is the root of much disaster. Paul Krugman wrote s lot about it, e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr...
- mabub24 9y agoThis Reuters blog post points to one: refusing to invest in public universities. This leads private debt to grow, while austerity offers no offset for students who must take out large loans to enroll. There are many others really. It's a pervasive metaphor (sovereign debt = household debt) that leads to fundamental confusions about how governments, individual citizens and private industry, and imports/exports, interact. Many austerity-hawks are sometimes unknowingly, sometimes very knowingly, repeating it ad nauseum. Too much sovereign debt is bad, but that is in specific contexts. Most governemnts require debt in order to secure credit (as in the USA immediately after securing independence). It's MUCH more complicated and flexible than household debt. The flexible part is often what is lost in the metaphor. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/01/14/why-public-debt-is-not-like-credit-card-debt/ http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/01/14/why-public-...
- Danihan 9y ago>This may be one reason why legal systems have historically been rather forgiving of men who go on rampages after too much wifely nagging or losing their jobs. Since when? Please show me an example of this..
- jt2190 9y ago"The rule of thumb" is probably the best-known example in English Common law. The rule held that it was ok for a man to beat his wife with a rod, as long as it was no thicker than his thumb. (Edit: I'm certain that we can find examples from the legal systems of other countries and cultures, if we bother to look.)
- sparky_z 9y agoSpeaking of bothering to look, you just have to check Wikipedia to know that this is a myth. http://csswashtenaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Rule_of_Thumb.pdf http://csswashtenaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Rule_of_T... https://books.google.com/books?id=-IpmCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA105&dq=rule+thumb#v=onepage&q=rule%20thumb&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=-IpmCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA105&dq=r...
- jt2190 9y agoFrom the same wikipedia article: > English common law before the reign of Charles II permitted a man to give his wife "moderate correction", but no "rule of thumb" (whether called by this name or not) has ever been the law in England.[2][8][d] In other words, beating of wives was historically an acceptable practice under English Common law, notwithstanding my mistakenly using a debunked anecdote. Thank you for "moderately correcting" me. (edit: And to further the original point that historically English Common law allowed for wife-beating, from wikipedia: > Prior to the mid-1800s, most legal systems viewed wife beating as a valid exercise of a husband's authority over his wife. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence#History)
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- rrherr 9y agoFrameWorks Institute is an interesting nonprofit organization — they "empirically identify the most effective ways of reframing social and scientific topics." In other words, replace the misleading metaphors with better ones. http://www.frameworksinstitute.org/mission.html http://www.frameworksinstitute.org/mission.html For a practical intro, see "How to build a metaphor to change people's minds" https://aeon.co/essays/how-to-build-a-metaphor-to-change-people-s-minds https://aeon.co/essays/how-to-build-a-metaphor-to-change-peo...
- pdog 9y agoMetaphors and analogies are not tools for critical thinking. When you use a metaphor or an analogy to link two ideas together, you are simply combining things that have no logical connection. It's essentially a quirk of human thought that this type of analogical "reasoning" even exists.
- blowski 9y agoSome of the greatest thinkers in history used metaphors. For example - Sócrates, Descartes, Confucius, Kant. If metaphors were good enough for them, they're good enough for me.
- dredmorbius 9y agoCritical, from critic: 1580s, "one who passes judgment," from Middle French critique (14c.), from Latin criticus "a judge, literary critic," from Greek kritikos "able to make judgments," from krinein "to separate, decide" (from PIE root krei- "to sieve," thus "discriminate, distinguish"). Meaning "one who judges merits of books, plays, etc." is from c. 1600. The English word always had overtones of "censurer, faultfinder."* http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=critic&allowed_in_frame=0 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=critic&allowed_in_f... That is, you literally cannot use the term "critical thinking" without employing metaphor.
- etiam 9y agoNot spot on the same issue perhaps, but these sorts of effects are an important reason I cringe at the uptake of newspeak like "alternative facts" by regular media and writers. If you not only let your adversary pick the framing but actively contribute to it, you're placing yourself at a potentially severe disadvantage for no good reason.
- mrhektor 9y agoThis is an excellent point. Sometimes, I think certain things just shouldn't get coverage, like a particularly silly / obviously wrong thing Trump tweets.