Apply science to colloquialisms
Nov 4th, 2008 | By Ian Bushfield | Category: FeatureShalini’s latest post got me thinking. Not about Stalin, communism or even atheism, but about the Annals of Improbable Research (the best articles are linked on the Wikipedia page).
Specifically she mentioned the familiar saying “like comparing apples and oranges” in an effort to imply that her critics were attempting to compare two completely unrelated things.
But let’s let science do the work for us!
In 1995, Scott Sandford, of the NASA Ames Research Centre, provided a detailed fourier-transform infrared spectroscopic (FTIR) analysis of both apples and oranges. Their findings? Apples and oranges were “very similar” and the comparison was “easy to make.”
But if you don’t have access to FTIR equipment, you can still do scientific comparisons between the two objects.
First, by inspection, both are somewhat sphereical, roughly the same size (within the same order of magnitude, varies by species), one is red while the other is orange, both have peels, although the orange has a thicker peel that is typically inedible, and both are seeded fruit. When sliced open we find the orange is more liquidy and comes in pre-sliced convienience (like it was deisgned… no jk), wheras the apple is crispier and has a core.
You can weigh the two fruit and find they have a similar mass (again, to an order of magnitude - I am in physics, this is all that matters to us). You could also drop them from baloconies to see which makes the bigger mess.
In fact, I imagine you can construct countless, controlled, scientific tests to compare apples to oranges.
Taking the conclusion of Dr. Sandford’s paper:
Thus, it would appear that the comparing apples and oranges defense should no longer be considered valid. This is a somewhat startling revelation. It can be anticipated to have a dramatic effect on the strategies used in arguments and discussions in the future.
Let’s go a bit further.
In 2003, inspired by Dr. Sandford’s findings, Mark Fonstad, William (Pugatch) Flynn, and Brandon Vogt decided to do a topographical geodetic survey to determine the validity of the statement “Kansas is flatter than a pancake.“
By grabbing some “samples” from the local IHOP (I’m not sure why they call them international, we don’t have any IHOPs in Canada) and calculated the surface topography of both the pancake and of Kansas.
Their findings were that the “flatness” (with 1 being perfectly flat) of Kansas was 0.9997 while the pancake was 0.957. They concluded, scientifically, that Kansas is truly flatter than a pancake.
So go out, find some familiar saying, like “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” or “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” and do some science.
Last 5 posts by Ian Bushfield
- What’s happening in Canada? - December 4th, 2008
- More reassuring news on Obama - November 10th, 2008
- A skeptical White House? - November 9th, 2008
- Talk of change or more of the same? - November 6th, 2008
- Secular convocation vs fundie radio - October 25th, 2008
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I disagree with your premise. The phrase “comparing apples and oranges” is not an effort to “compare two completely unrelated things”. I certainly don’t use this phrase to mean the comparison of “completely unrelated” things. I use this phrase when someone is attempting to compare two things which appear to the casual observer to be sufficiently equal, and hence interchangeable.
As you point out, apples and oranges are indeed “very similar”. But this also means that apples and oranges have meaningful differences (skin composition, color, seeding, pulp, etc.) that ultimately render a direct comparison inaccurate.
So let’s not relegate this phrase to the dustbin just yet. Doing so would be like “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”. ; )
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I, too, disagree with your premise. Language itself is symbolic. This means metaphors, analogies, similes- and yes, colloquialisms- are a key feature of language. While not absolutely necessary (see Steven Pinker’s attempt to rewrite the Declaration of Independence without a single metaphor), these things have proven useful to the act of communication and they’re here to stay.
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Ian Bushfield Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I realize the value of language, but at the same time I was trying to bring out some satirical applications of science that could inspire people beyond the stereotypical boring laboratory science.
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Ian Bushfield Reply:
November 6th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Further, there’s a deeper message in here, that often common sense defies science. Critical thinking should extend beyond the universities.
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