Anthropomorphism and its Discontents

Arguing about names for things is fun, and arguments about history are captivating and educational, but, if there is one thing all four commentaries and I can agree on, it is that what really matters is how best to move a scientific field forward. The usefulness of an approach in science is a difficult beast to capture. Attempts to quantify the fertility of anthropomorphism can quickly degenerate into something akin to a scientific beauty contest (at worst) or a matter of counting publications or citations of protagonists (at best). Blumberg asks "whether individuals who explicitly engage in anthropomorphism have a track record of scientific discovery that exceeds those who do not[?]" and suggests that the "apparent usefulness of anthropomorphism … is an illusion" (p. 145).