"... scientific research is typically directed at the elucidation of entities and processes about which no clear understanding exists, and to proceed, scientists must find ways of talking about what they do not know - about which they as yet have only glimpses, guesses, speculations. To make sense of their day-to-day efforts, they need to invent words, expressions, forms of speech that indicate or point to phenomena for which the have no literal descriptors. ... Making sense of what is not yet known is thus necessarily an ongoing and provisional activity, a groping in the dark; and for this, the imprecision of figurative language is indispensable."

Slots and Values
ref	p118
source	Unnamed