Beyond compare

摘要

In an Amazon review of the 2013 book Creation, written by former Nature editor Adam Rutherford, one critic takes issue with what hedescribes as the work's "wordy trickery". "I lost count," the reviewercomplains, "of the number of times that an obscure word or metaphor was helicoptered in." Supplied by airlift or not, the online grumble illustrates both the irritation that some feel at analogies and metaphor in scientific writ-ing, as well as the ease with which they can be, ahem, helicoptered in.Its a debate as old as, well, the hills. And one revived in a Comment article on page 523 that fizzes with... [ That's enough metaphors-Ed.].