A Good Life, Part 2. Does Science Need Metaphor? An Interview with Dr. Fred Putnam on how scientists depend on metaphors

Is our reality best described by precise, scientific language, or is it better described by what we might call a more "poetic" view of the world. While we might think these two are mutually exclusive, even a quick glimpse into the expressions of the scientific community will often show the difficulty of separating the two. Scientists often struggle to describe their current understanding of their subjects without some reliance on more poetic tools such as metaphor. 

My guest Dr. Fred Putnam is professor of Bible and Liberal Studies at Templeton Honors College at Eastern University. He believes that precision and poetics both have an important role to play in how we understand our world and our experience in it. As Dr. Putnam and I continue our discussion surrounding my illustrated children’s book, A Good Life, we’ll see again how difficult it is to explain our own experience without the use of metaphor, no matter our vocation.