Caleb Scharf defends science writers who use metaphors against those who oppose “anything that smacks of anthropomorphism”:
Black holes are not, they complain, allowed to be ‘monsterized.’ Galaxies can’t experience painful disruption, planetary systems can’t be spoken of as disheveled entities or family members. Well, okay, but since prehistory humans have sought to relate to the world around themselves by finding anthropomorphic connections. Is it scientific? No, not particularly, but what are we to do, just shrug and separate ourselves from the entire natural world–them and us?
As a working scientist I actually don’t have any problem with the notion of making mental labels for natural phenomena that include some degree of personality. I like my black holes fearsome and my interstellar gas thin and frail. It may well be that in doing so one reinforces a certain blinkering, but we’re not all Mr. Spock, we need structures, we need something to hang on to–as long as we remember to let go occasionally.
More Dish on the use of metaphor in science here.
(Comic: xkcd)
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