ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Darwinism and metaphor from three points of view. First, it examines the uses of metaphor in human thought in general and scientific thought in particular. Second, it analyzes the careers of two metaphors that Charles Darwin employed in The Origin of Species. Third, it discusses the use of metaphor within the polemics that surround the issue of Darwinism in the larger society. A metaphor is specific type of analogy, a figure of speech that makes a comparison. Metaphors, then, are everywhere in science and politics, in discourse public and private, but their meaning and social impact are always subject to dispute. During the nineteenth century, biologists would frequently substitute the metaphor of sieve for the metaphor of selection in their discussions of Darwin's theory. Darwin tried to convey his scientific ideas through metaphors of selection and struggle; in consequence, his scientific heirs state-by-state now wage a framing war with regressives eager to expel him from public school.
