[pdog]

Metaphors and analogies are not tools for critical thinking. When you use a metaphor or an analogy to link two ideas together, you are simply combining things that have no logical connection. It's essentially a quirk of human thought that this type of analogical "reasoning" even exists.

[dredmorbius]

Critical, from critic:

1580s, "one who passes judgment," from Middle French critique (14c.), from Latin criticus "a judge, literary critic," from Greek kritikos "able to make judgments," from krinein "to separate, decide" (from PIE root krei- "to sieve," thus "discriminate, distinguish"). Meaning "one who judges merits of books, plays, etc." is from c. 1600. The English word always had overtones of "censurer, faultfinder."*

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=critic&allowed_in_f...

That is, you literally cannot use the term "critical thinking" without employing metaphor.

[blowski]

Some of the greatest thinkers in history used metaphors. For example - Sócrates, Descartes, Confucius, Kant. If metaphors were good enough for them, they're good enough for me.

[pdog]

At best, metaphors are a useful mnemonic device. If they had any value or explanatory power, they'd be used in science. But they're not.

[blowski]

I see scientists using them all the time. For example, Stephen Hawking has described the universe as being like the surface of a balloon.