83 How science is secretly driven by analogy – Melanie Mitchell

Melanie Mitchell is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute and a leading thinker on artificial intelligence, analogy, and abstraction . She reflects on how analogy quietly drives creativity and scientific discovery even in the most rigorous fields . Analogies often emerge during moments of mental rest and don’t need to be accurate to nudge you into new avenues of thinking. We discuss how many core scientific concepts began as metaphors, how analogies can both illuminate and mislead, and whether large language models truly grasp abstraction. The conversation ranges from the role of analogies in Einstein’s thought process to evolutionary “landscapes” and the balance between generative night science and critical day science. The Night Science Podcast is produced by the Night Science Institute . For more information on Night Science, visit night-science.org .

You can listen to 83 How science is secretly driven by analogy – Melanie Mitchell online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

83 How science is secretly driven by analogy – Melanie Mitchell is an episode from Night Science by Itai Yanai & Martin Lercher.

This episode is 33:19 long.

This episode was published on Feb 16, 2026.

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