Crap Analogies

[Rageaholic]

Why is it that most analogies people use are complete bullshit?

Example: I read this blog where some nutcase wanted to establish a theocracy. He said that belief equals fact because "we believe the sky is blue because it is". Never mind that you can actually point to the sky and say "it's blue". We can't point to a God and say "so and so religion is 100% true". If we could, things would be much much easier.

Another example: Bill O'reilly comparing contraceptives to his football practice, claiming that they should both be paid for by insurance. Such an obvious apples and oranges comparison that I don't even know how to respond to it.

And another one: Comparing homosexuality to pedophilia. One is between two consenting adults, the other is between an adult and a non consenting child. One hurts the other person, the other does not. There is really no comparison here.

I could write a whole book of all the dumb analogies I've heard. Granted, not all analogies are bad as some do point a realistic picture, but a lot of them are so manipulative. It's like they're 12 year olds who took their first logic class and are trying to argue a certain position they don't even understand. What's terrifying is that some of these people are in politics or have their own show (Bill O'reilly). No wonder so many people buy into these.

[Andara Bledin]

These are all straw men, usually being used to distract from the real argument and the complete lack of merit in the original position by putting up a much more ridiculous argument, sometimes in the hope that it will make the original argument look stronger by comparison.

^-.-^

[DrFaroohk]

I use a lot of analogies, but I try to keep it somewhere in the same region. Like if we're debating a traffic law, and not sure which is right and wrong just yet, compare to another established theory about traffic law which is similar and hope to find some parallels.

And apples and oranges? Both grow on trees, have an outer skin, have seeds, and you make juice out of them! We should start using that to show how similar things are.

[HYHYBT]

Making good analogies for some things is HARD.

(Which is why I often precede mine with a disclaimer. "I know the analogy isn't parallel in all respects, but if you don't try to push it further than it's meant to go, it kinda works.")

[bex1218]

And another one: Comparing homosexuality to pedophilia. One is between two consenting adults, the other is between an adult and a non consenting child. One hurts the other person, the other does not. There is really no comparison here.

Yes, because I wanna do horrid things to little kids. And lets not forget the animals.

[DrFaroohk]

I remember hearing Dr. Laura say that. Someone was like "But I was born this way!" and she said "Yeah well so are pedophiles."


Reminds of me of a "friend" i had in the military was explaining why gays in the military was a bad idea. First he tried the unit cohesion argument, which I debunked, but then he said it was something to do with donating blood, because when you're out in the field and get wounded they just hook you up to whoever has the same blood type, and "gay guys will fuck ANYTHING."

After that I think I realized how full of shit he was lol...

[Hyena Dandy]

Part of the problem with it is that people sometimes completely misinterpret an analogy. For example "I believe in God like I believe the sky is blue" is probably saying "I believe in God as a simple fact, I don't now and never have doubted it. That is how firm my belief is." Which I think is a valid metaphor to describe the strength of belief, if not the reason one holds it.

I get annoyed when people nitpick a metaphor in a way that it obviously wasn't intended. If someone says "God's love is like the love of a father" it's silly to respond "Well I can prove my father exists." Because that's obviously not what the metaphor was about. It's trying to explain basically how God works, not how people are supposed to see God.

Metaphors can never perfectly describe a situation. Time and space are not literally like stretched rubber. Time and space are not derived from an extract of a brazilian tree. But they are like stretched rubber in that an object placed on them causes them to distort in a noticeable way, and larger ones cause them to distort more.