Cover not available

In:How Metaphors Guide, Teach and Popularize Science
Edited by Anke Beger and Thomas H. Smith
[Figurative Thought and Language 6] 2020
► pp. 41–71

Get fulltext
PDF logo with download linkDownload Chapter PDF

Chapter 2
Social metaphors in cellular and molecular biology

 | University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 22 April 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.6.02bro
Abstract
Consistent with conceptual metaphor theory (CMT), metaphor use in biology is characterized by three overarching metaphorical themes: The Semiotic Metaphor, Teleology and Emergence/Supervenience. These themes are applied in analyzing metaphor use in the study of cellular systems. Use of metaphors drawn from social domains is extensive and systematic. In science teaching, attention should be paid to how scientists acquire and evaluate new knowledge, and convey new findings. Abductive inference as a means of arriving at a best explanation is of great pedagogical value. Abductive inference depends upon metaphors grounded in embodied and social conceptual frameworks. Explicit acknowledgment of metaphorical usage in science teaching illuminates the path from scientific observations toward robust theories.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Over-arching metaphors in biology
    • The semiotic metaphor
    • Teleology
    • Emergence and Supervenience
  • Metaphor and evolution
    • Social metaphors in biology
    • Cellular systems
    • Bacteria
    • Quorum sensing
    • Cooperation
    • Virulence
    • Biofilms
  • Conceptual metaphors, abduction and science education
  • Criticisms and defenses of CMT in science and science education
  • Summary
  • Notes
  • References
References (51)
References
Alberts, B. (1998). The cell as a collection of protein machines: Preparing the next generation of molecular biologists. Cell, 92, 291–294. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Allen, C. (2009). Teleological notions in biology. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2009 Edition), [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Antunes, L. C. M. & Ferreira, R. B. R. (2009). Intercellular communication in bacteria. Critical Reviews in Microbiology, 35(2), 69–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Antunes, L. C. M., Ferreira, R. B. R., Buckner, M. M. C., & Finlay, B. B. (2010). Quorum sensing in bacterial virulence. Microbiology, 156, 2271–2282. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bassler, B. L., & Losick, R. (2006). Bacterially speaking. Cell, 125, 237–246. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bassler, B. B. (2012). Microbes as menaces, mates and marvels. Daedalus, 67–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, T. L. (2003). Making truth: Metaphor in science. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buckman, R. (2003). Human wildlife: The life that lives on us. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burch, Robert (2014). Charles Sanders Peirce. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), <[URL]>.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burdett, A. N. (2012). Evolution’s misleading language. Science, 338, 741–742. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Camp, E. (2006). Metaphor in the mind: The cognition of metaphor. Philosophy Compass, 1(2), 154–170. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cell as a factory. (2015). [URL]
Darwin, C. (1859). The origin of species by means of natural selection. London: John Murray.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1986). The blind watchmaker. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deacon, T. (2013). Incomplete nature: How mind emerged from matter. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Denison, R. F. & Muller, K. (2016). The evolution of cooperation. Scientist, 30 (1), 40–46.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Douven, I. (2011). Abduction. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), <[URL]>Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drescher, K., Nadell, C. D., Stone, H. A., Wingren, N. S., & Bassler, B. L. (2014). Solutions to the public goods dilemma in bacterial biofilms. Current Biology, 24(1), 50–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibb, R. W., Jr. (2001). Evaluating Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Discourse Processes, 48, 529–562. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. Jr. (2015). Do pragmatic signals affect conventional metaphor understanding? A failed test of deliberate metaphor theory. Journal of Pragmatics, 90, 77–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldstein, J. (1999). Emergence as a construct: History and issues. Emergence: Complexity Issues in Organizational Management, 1(1), 49–62. [URL]. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gray, K. M. (1997). Intercellular communication and group behavior in bacteria. Trends in Microbiology, 5(5), 184–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greenberg, E. P. (1997). Quorum sensing in gram-negative bacteria, ASM News, 63, 371–377.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guttenplan, S. (2005). Objects of metaphor. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holland, J. H. (1998). Emergence: From chaos to order. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Emmeche, C., & Hoffmeyer, J. (1991). From language to nature: The semiotic metaphor in biology. Semiotica, 84, 1–41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Institute of Medicine (2013). The human microbiome, diet, and health: Workshop summary. National Academies Press: Washington D.C. [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination and reason. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, M., & Lakoff, G. (2002). Why cognitive linguistics requires embodied realism. Cognitive Linguistics, 13(3), 245–263. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, S. (2001). Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, and software, New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kauffman, S. (1996). At home in the universe: The search for the laws of self-organization and complexity. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kövecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor: (2nd Edition), New York, NY, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challege to Western thought. New York, NY: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lerat E., & Moran, N. A. (2004). The evolutionary history of quorum sensing systems in biology. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 21(5), 903–913. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Linewater, C. H., Davies, P. C. W., & Ruse, M. (Eds.) (2013). Complexity and the arrow of time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lipton, P. (2000). Inference to the best explanation. In W. H. Newton-Smith (Ed.), A companion to the philosophy of science (pp.184–193). London: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (1992). The idea of teleology. Journal of the History of Ideas, 53, 117–135. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McGlone, M. S (2007). What is the explanatory value of a conceptual metaphor? Language and Communication, 27, 109–126. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Murphy, G. (1996). On metaphoric representations. Cognition, 60, 173–204. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mill, J. S. (1843). A System of logic, Bk III, Chapter 6.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nagle, T. (2012). Mind and cosmos: Why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. Oxford UK: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
National Academies Press (2012). The social biology of microbial communities. Workshop Summary, Washington, D. C.: National Academies Press, [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nealson, K. H., Platt, T., & Hastings, J. W. (1970). Cellular control of the synthesis and activity of the bacterial luminescent system. Journal of Bacteriology, 104(1), 313–322. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosslenbroich, B. (2006). The notion of progress in evolutionary biology. Biology and Philosophy, 21(1), 41–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sperry, R. W. (1991). In defense of mentalism and emergent interaction. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 12(2), 221–246.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steen, G. J. (2008). The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a three-dimensional model of metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol, 23, 213–241. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). Metaphor studies in retrospect and prospect. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 12(2), 493–510. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steen, G. (2015). Developing, testing and interpreting deliberate metaphor theory. Journal of Pragmatics, 90, 67–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tiers, E. T., Rousseau, R. A., West, S. A., & Denison, R. F. (2003). Host sanctions and the legume-rhizobium mutualism. Nature, 425, 78–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Woese, Carl R. (1987). Bacterial evolution. Microbiology Review, 51(2), 221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Skoczylas, Łukasz & Janusz Skoczylas
2023. Warstwy czasu i antropocen. Metafory geologiczne w pamięcioznawstwie. Kultura i Społeczeństwo 67:4 ► pp. 57 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. Slowing Metaphor Down [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 26], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue