In order to characterise the philosophical approach of new experimentalism,
Madrid Casado (2006) suggests the metaphor of the scientist as musician or as
architect. According to him, scientists do not ‘collect’ the world (as in the Popperian
metaphor of scientists as fishermen), nor do they ‘represent’ it (as in the Galilean
metaphor of scientists as painters). Rather, they ‘compose’ or ‘construct’ the world,
in a much more proactive fashion. Hence, science can be understood not as our
knowledge of how the world is, but as our knowledge of what we have done, or can
do, to the world.