My experience is that this is very true among a certain group of people, particularly literal-minded software enngineer types. But it is much less true in the general population where a single good analogy can accomplish more than pages of prose.
Analogies don't accomplish anything in basically all of the uses I've seen. People want them to serve as proof, but it's a lazy way of getting out of showing the validity of a conclusion.
Most people go into a new topic or new issue area with a basically neutral stance. They aren't looking to disprove the argument, nor do they even view it as an argument. Rather, they're thinking "OK, show me how this is relevant - tie it into my life and how it affects me, then I'll make up my mind based on my feelings afterwards" (in a far more subconscious way - basically nobody actually goes through these thoughts consciously). Analogies are your chance to do that. Get the right one and people associate your issue with something they already hold a positive position on. Get the wrong one and they just ignore you.
It's not without it's uses as a technique but you have to make sure the model the analogy constructs is, well, actually analogous to the situation you are modeling.
Analogies are an attempt to generalize an argument. Say we are trying to prove that "It will rain" is a valid conclusion from "If it is cloudy it will rain and it is cloudy". We can generalize this to "A -> B" & "B" -> "B", which you will recognize as an application of modus ponens from formal logic. Analogies try to use this power on fuzzier topics.
A normative principle like "We should build a new post office" are so abstract that they cannot be tackled head on (try defining "should" in the comments section and having no one point out a flaw to see why this is difficult). Because of this, we try to make comparison to other, seemingly similar, cases in an attempt to draw out the underlying logical structure. Because of this, I think they are a powerful and useful argumentative strategy.
If I were to argue that Apple's app store policies were harmful, then I would do just that. I would define terms, define the parties involved, show the harm and to which parties, maybe provide some examples, show which laws it violates, and maybe suggest solutions.
But I don't see why involving Cheerios at a brick and mortar retail store would help clear anything up.
I'm not versed in formal logic, but I believe it would be:
"A -> B", and I want to prove that "C -> D"
So I make the analogy that "A is similar to C, and B to D in some ways" thus then C -> D"
A lot of people will take this as a valid proof. But it has yet to be proven that A and C, and B and D are actually interchangeable.
Edit: To refer this back to the original argument, saying that the AppStore is like a brick and mortar store, and Cheerios is like Epic games is a nice analogy, but it can't possibly prove anything because they are just not the same thing.
What they may do though, is potentially align the reader's point of view with the writer's, but not necessarily towards the _right_ point of view, assuming there is one.
I think that's where the danger lies. In the end we are not explaining much, just passing a vision of the issue in terms of good/bad/meh depending on the analogy we choose.
That's also how we convince people a lot of stuff is just "against freedom", or "big <xxxx> acting selfishly" etc.
As you say it accomplishes something, people take a position very quickly. But is it a good thing ? I'm torn.
Like any powerful tool, it can be misused. But it can also do great good when used well. We live in a world surrounded by fiendishly complex systems with layers of abstractions and deep chains of emergent phenomena. Our primate brains aren't geared to process the consequences of our actions in a space that far removed from the forests where we evolved.
Analogies are one of the best tools I know to let us do that. But we do have to be careful about which analogies we choose to believe.
As other's have mentioned, perhaps this is only for literal minded thinkers. In Pre-suasion by Robert Cialdini metaphors are identified as the most effective persuasion device. Essentially, take something the audience understands well and use it explain something else.
An anecdote Cialdini provides is from a person who had many years of being the top life insurance salesman in the country. He used a metaphor of "when you check out, your life insurance checks in". The metaphor brought up feelings of abandonment and support in a way that people quickly understood and bought into.
Edit: The use of a life insurance salesman as an example is hilariously appropriate given the scam that whole life insurance is and how many people are fooled into buying it.
Whole life insurance is rarely necessary, and extremely expensive compared to the alternatives. See links below.
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/what-you-need-to-know-abou...
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/debunking-the-myths-of-who...
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/appropriate-uses-of-perman...
Source: Cheerios
Voltage is not like water pressure. If you have a high water pressure, water will inexorably be pushed through the pipe to relieve the pressure. That's so regardless of whether the pipe is 1 inch or 1 yard in diameter.
Voltage on the other hand means nothing without current. A high voltage on its own - like static electricity - will not move many electrons through the conductor.
A larger pipe will push more water at a lower pressure like a low resistance wire will move more energy at a lower voltage.
How do you propose you have voltage in a conductive medium (pipe) without current?
To me, it's not a bad analogy (nevermind you that electrons flow the opposite direction of current) - and I am well-versed in physics.
Analogies illustrate a concept. They don't establish reasoning or causation or proof.
I found this kind of thing a struggle in engineering math courses, where you'd often move equations into transformed spaces (frequency domain, whatever), perform operations on them, and then un-transform them to pop out a result. It's like, yes, the transform is obviously an immensely powerful abstraction, but I didn't really trust what was going on in there unless I did at least a few of the exercises from first principles as well, in order to prove to myself that doing operations in the transformed space was "safe".
analogies are not very good in arguments where the other person is resisting the conclusion you want to draw. they can be great when you are trying to teach/explain something to someone who trusts you though.
I have never seen this be determine-able in real life scenarios
>analogies are not very good in arguments where the other person is resisting the conclusion you want to draw. they can be great when you are trying to teach/explain something to someone who trusts you though.
This is a great statement to show why analogies are bad and how they are abused.
>> C is similar to A in all ways that matter
> I have never seen this be determine-able in real life scenarios
this much I can agree on. when discussing human issues, analogies should be understood to be solely a rhetorical device, useful for persuading people, but not so much for getting to the truth of the matter.
Effectively illustrating the right concept is, in my opinion, the hardest part of communication. Analogies are powerful because they're intuitive illustrations.
> I typically see analogies used to support an argument, which analogies don't do
Yes and no. Analogies communicate concepts, and concepts support arguments. Analogies neither support arguments nor fail to support arguments; the concepts they communicate do that.
They're hard to use because they can be distracting: if you choose the wrong analogy, you may illustrate an irrelevant concept, rather than the one you mean to. That's why people argue: you mean to illustrate [concept A], but what pops into the receiver's mind is [concept A] AND [concept B]. So now you're not on the same page about what was just said.
Look at the cheerios example: how may related-but-not-the-same examples have popped up in the comments? It's a bad analogy: it needs to be much more narrow and specific.
Seriously though, there's good evidence that literally everything the human brain does is use analogies. The classic example being if I asked whether something is "in" your field of view. Without even thinking, you know how to conceptualize something that only exist in your mind as a physical container.
Also it often only makes sense in the mind of the author...