Misleading metaphors

https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/07/language-and-thought

by tomkwok • 9 years ago

90 60 9 years ago

economist.com

siner• 9 years ago

Paywalled article. If your connection is not super fast cancel loading of the page as soon as you see the article.

NikolaeVarius3• 9 years ago

Easy way is to block JS

dredmorbius2• 9 years ago

https://outline.com or https://archive.is are also often useful.

Owloid2• 9 years ago

Despite being paywall, the content is interesing and viewable by canceling the loading as siner posted.

abrowne• 9 years ago

Or use the "kill sticky headers" bookmarklet: https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/

Owloid2• 9 years ago

The 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.

neom2• 9 years ago

I 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.

amelius2• 9 years ago

Analogies are similar (or should I say analogous?)

neom2• 9 years ago

I was thinking about this also, do you think analogies are more logical/rational and metaphors are more abstract/creative?

amelius2• 9 years ago

I'm not sure. But as it turns out, metaphors are analogies, but used in a special way. Wikipedia has more info.

harperlee• 9 years ago

If 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_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• 9 years ago

The 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.

dahart6• 9 years ago

Are 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• 9 years ago

I'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.

dahart6• 9 years ago

I 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.

johngalt• 9 years ago

Calories in/out is true. As in it is an accurate statement.

The problem is that common examinations of diet focus on this math rather than what motivates humans to eat. It is like saying 'the problem with traffic is too many cars.' It is an axiom that does nothing to examine the causes. Admonishing everyone to 'drive less' will do very little unless several other systems are changed.

NikolaeVarius3• 9 years ago

Its one thing to tell someone to "drive less" when they have to go to work and don't have the capital/opportunity to move closer or change jobs.

Eating less is entirely a personal willpower issue.

Analemma_3• 9 years ago

I like to say that "calories in/out is true" in the same way that "abstinence is the only 100% effective form of birth control" is true: it's an obviously true statement that, in practice, is useless at best and dangerously counterproductive at worst.

moron4hire2• 9 years ago

The "calories in/out" line also ignores that the "calories out" part varies extremely. For example, my mother has two bum knees from a lifetime of sports activity that now prevent her from engaging in most strenuous activity, and an under-active thyroid. She's also post-menopausal, so her overall metabolism is super low. She literally cannot lose weight on anything more than 1500 calories per day.

"It's just a matter of willpower"--as one of my sibling commentors so thickly puts it--is theoretically true, it's just that a lot more willpower is required out of some people than others.

panarky• 9 years ago

The idea that the only way to lose weight is to reduce calorie intake to below calorie burn is not true in any practical sense.

And it's not just a matter of willpower.

If you add up the calories in the food you eat, then subtract the calories you burn through exercise, respiration, beating heart, etc., you cannot compute weight gain or loss.

That's because the body doesn't use 100% of calories in food. Some calories are never absorbed and are excreted as waste. And if you eat a big meal and then you don't exercise immediately to offset it, the excess calories are not automatically converted to fat.

And different bodies have different metabolisms, which is nearly impossible to quantify in any practical way. In fact, cutting back on calorie intake can actually cause some bodies to add fat.

So the whole idea of applying a simplistic equation to a complex and dynamic process like this probably does more harm than good.

nabla9• 9 years ago

Diet discussion circles around an issue that can't be said aloud: People have varying different amounts of self-control and self-control varies situationally. Fat itself is hormonally active tissue that can affect self-control.

Most people are able to lose their weight fast once they get motivated and are in a place where they can form a good habit. Habit forming requires so staying power and ability to live in some amount of discomfort. When people difficulties in life, or become depressed, food is good excellent way improve mood temporarily. Food works as instant antidepressant for mild depression. It's long term effects for mental health are usually negative.

Many people (me included) feel few days of extreme hopelessness and loss of meaning in life if they fast. If person cant accept periods of mental discomfort, but treats them as emergencies that need to be solved and not endured, there is no way he/she can get anything done that requires more than average effort.

If we would treat self-control as major issue in health and life even for normal mentally healthy people, we could tackle the issue directly without negative connotations and shame.

dahart6• 9 years ago

I agree so much, nicely said. I even think it's more difficult than just self control, which I alluded to a little bit. Our bodies subconsciously treat the threat of not having enough food as a life or death situation. Once I became aware of it I noticed myself doing it all the time. I can't go on a short hike without packing more food than I need. No trips with family & friends ever run short on food, we always pack too much. I'm sure this used to be a real problem in past history, I'm certain we have evolved this way for a reason, but now we always have enough food. I like to think about it this way, anyway, in part because it explains why self control is so extremely difficult without the judgement. Lack of self control over food really isn't an individual weakness, it is an evolutionary advantage that we all share.

lr4444lr2• 9 years ago

...We are hard-wired physiologically to crave food...

You just invoked the misleading "brain as a computer" metaphor. I know, it wasn't intentional, and you probably didn't mean it in the way most people would understand the term, but do give the article the benefit of the doubt that these concepts are such commonplaces in our spoken language that they can affect our thinking if we're not careful.

dahart6• 9 years ago

Interesting point, you're right that hard-wired can be seen as a metaphor, but I'm curious why you think it's misleading. I was referring to our evolved state, and my belief that our evolved state has mechanisms that fear not having enough food. If there's a problem with what I said, it's not the metaphor, it's what I believe. I can use biology terms instead of electrical terms, but I'd be saying the same thing. We are, in fact, evolved to crave sex and food. I don't think any biologist or anthropologist would disagree with that. Do you think using the term "hard-wired" instead of "evolved" is misleading?

thewayfarer• 9 years ago

"Metaphors are like models, only with unclear responsibilities." --Nick Rowe, talking about the use of metaphors to describe economic models.

abuteau• 9 years ago

Other 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 [2] https://medium.com/pnr-paper/metaphors-models-theories-fb406...

lucio• 9 years ago

Misleading 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_3• 9 years ago

Since 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.

trendia2• 9 years ago

Can 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_3• 9 years ago

Avoiding austerity.

mabub24• 9 years ago

This 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-...

Danihan• 9 years 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..

jt21903• 9 years 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_z2• 9 years ago

Speaking 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_T...

https://books.google.com/books?id=-IpmCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA105&dq=r...

drewrv• 9 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_passion

rrherr• 9 years ago

FrameWorks 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

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-peo...

pdog2• 9 years ago

Metaphors 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.

blowski2• 9 years ago

Some 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.

pdog2• 9 years ago

At best, metaphors are a useful mnemonic device. If they had any value or explanatory power, they'd be used in science. But they're not.

dredmorbius2• 9 years ago

Critical, 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_f...

That is, you literally cannot use the term "critical thinking" without employing metaphor.

etiam• 9 years ago

Not 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• 9 years ago

This is an excellent point. Sometimes, I think certain things just shouldn't get coverage, like a particularly silly / obviously wrong thing Trump tweets.

Misleading metaphors

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