The reason anthropomorphising is against the rules is obvious. Imposing human reactions and motivations is likely to occult what non-human reality is doing. ”Iron is drawn by the Loadstone, as a bride after the bridegroom, to be embraced,” wrote a sixteenth century scientist, “and the iron is so desirous to joyn with it as her husband.” Thinking along those lines doesn’t seem likely to end up at magnetic fields. Even modern biologists dealing with animal behavior are in danger of reading altruism into bees and vengefulness into crows. “The larval insect is, if I may be permitted to lapse for a moment into anthropomorphism,” wrote an entomologist in 1911, “a sluggish, greedy, self-centred creature, while the adult is industrious, abstemious and highly altruistic.” Really, not useful.