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”… analogy is indeed an indispensable and inevitable tool for scientific progress. Perhaps I had better say what I mean by that. I do not mean metaphor; I do not mean allegory; I do not even mean similarity; but I mean a special kind of similarity which is the similarity of structure, the similarity of form; a similarity of constellation between two sets of structures, two sets of particulars, that are manifestly very different but have structural parallels. … The analogies in physics may well be misleading for biologists and psychologists, because of the enormous part that rather rigid formal structure plays in physics … These examples are thus not meant as paradigms, but rather as an illustration of the fact that, in what is regarded as one of the most rigorous and certain of the sciences, we use an instrument that has been in great disrepute, because uncritically used it can confuse invention with confirmation and truth.”
Not long ago I was a member of a group of psychologists who had been invited to visit a camp for juvenile delinquents. The camp director asked Fred, one of his prize wards, to show us through the area and answer any of our questions. Fred had been arrested for auto theft and was almost ready for release from the camp. He proved to be an excellent guide, not only to the camp facilities, but to the moral values of delinquent youth.
Fred was a muscular young man who wore a pair of dungarees and a tight fitting white T-shirt. His chest was