I liked the examples and what they point at, but I didn’t understand your “wrestling” metaphor at all. In fact, from the title, I’d expect an essay analyzing the sport of wrestling à la Moneyball analyzing baseball.
Instead, your essay seems to be about actively manipulating systems instead of detachedly theorizing about them from a distance; about experimenting and playing around with nature; and maybe also about doing science more ambitiously.
… the relation to “wrestling”, scientific or otherwise, eludes me.
You imply that you understand it’s a metaphor, but your other sentences seem to insist on taking the word “wrestling” literally as referring to the sport. The sentence in bold
“This was no passive measure to confirm a hypothesis, but a wrestling with nature to make her reveal her secrets.”
Makes it pretty clear I think. Do you simply not like the metaphor?
“Wrestling with nature” does not work for me as a metaphor. To me it doesn’t evoke any imagery that would make sense. Maybe it’s a problem of native vs. foreign speaker?
Yeah, I meant the type of metaphor that Ansel points at, where it’s the manipulation of systems that matters rather than just passive observation. The wrestling is mostly a poetic license and a nice picture, but not to be taken too literally.
I liked the examples and what they point at, but I didn’t understand your “wrestling” metaphor at all. In fact, from the title, I’d expect an essay analyzing the sport of wrestling à la Moneyball analyzing baseball.
Instead, your essay seems to be about actively manipulating systems instead of detachedly theorizing about them from a distance; about experimenting and playing around with nature; and maybe also about doing science more ambitiously.
… the relation to “wrestling”, scientific or otherwise, eludes me.
You imply that you understand it’s a metaphor, but your other sentences seem to insist on taking the word “wrestling” literally as referring to the sport. The sentence in bold
“This was no passive measure to confirm a hypothesis, but a wrestling with nature to make her reveal her secrets.”
Makes it pretty clear I think. Do you simply not like the metaphor?
“Wrestling with nature” does not work for me as a metaphor. To me it doesn’t evoke any imagery that would make sense. Maybe it’s a problem of native vs. foreign speaker?
Yeah, I meant the type of metaphor that Ansel points at, where it’s the manipulation of systems that matters rather than just passive observation. The wrestling is mostly a poetic license and a nice picture, but not to be taken too literally.
Maybe grappling? (As opposed to e.g. pro wrestling.)