Personal

In the work I do with computer based systems, I am constantly trying to stop myself from anthropomorphising the systems I am talking about. When explaining how a certain process works, it is all too easy to say "because the system sees x, it decides y". It instantly brings a process into a familiar context, allowing the listener/reader to empathise with the 'decision' the system has to make and therefore rationalise the reasons for the outcome. Unfortunately, this kind of language reinforces in the mind of the listener the concept of the system having understanding of the context in which it makes 'decisions', or at least the capacity to understand it, rather than simply producing a binary reaction (or a complex series of binary reactions) to the data presented to it. People want to believe in the intransigence or irrationality of computers because that is easier than trying to fathom the flaw in the governing logic that has led to an incorrect 'decision'. We seem hell bent on ascribing intelligence to machines that are a long way from genuine intelligence; on a superficial level it aides our understanding of process but at a deeper level it undermines a complete understanding of what is actually happening. It pushes us towards a tendency to excuse systemic problems as quirks or eccentricities. 

One of my least favourite occurrences of anthropomorphisation is in reference to evolution, where the phrase "evolution has given x species y ability" is rife. Evolution gives nothing, ever. Evolution is not some benevolent deity handing down useful physical attributes from on high, it is simply a process by which the organisms least well suited to an environment do not survive, eventually leaving only those best suited to it. The cheetah can run fast because all the slow ones died of starvation; gazelles can fun fast because all the slow ones got eaten; humans can run fast because they invented performance enhancing drugs. The point is that evolution did not waltz along one day and say "oh cheetahs, you look hungry, let me make you faster" because evolution is not a deity. We simply choose to represent it as such because the process is perhaps both too simple and too complex, and seemingly random (and possibly too brutal) to summarise. The obvious inference to draw from the anthropomorphisation of evolution would be that we are simply trying to replace God. However, I don't think this is the case, rather I think our ancestors obsession with gods was simply another manifestation of this same impulse; we have always had the desire to explain the complex by thinking of it as the product of sentience. This says a lot about our relationships with our fellow beings: we believe them to be fundamentally incomprehensible, but in that we believe them to be incredibly complex. Because the unknowability of our fellow beings is tempered by the familiarity of recognition in the commonality of our species, we wish to apply that familiarity to other aspects of our universe in order to compensate for its incomprehensible complexity. The anthropomorphisation of natural (and manmade) systems (in the form of a god or a more informal association) is a way of bringing comfort to the knowledge that we will never know or fully understand our universe. What it should never do is act as an excuse for ignorance.