Is it pretentious to use the word 'apposite'?

Usage of the word 'apposite' is demonstrated today by a quotation from Fashionable Nonsense : Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science by Alan D. Sokal and Jean Bricmont. An Amazon reader review of the book mentions counts Goedel's Theorem as among the ideas abused. I hope that my own informal use of the theorem, inspired by my 1993 reading of G.J. Chaitin , does not offend Goedel too greatly.

For hypothesis generation and other creative processes, I relish finding analogies from one field to another and even "mixing metaphors" in a brainstorming session. Lateral thinking may make one's ideas easier to find, understand, and use; may promote collaboration; and may, via a "network effect," increase the value of the work. I expect most readers will agree thus far.

In rhetoric, one must be more careful. To introduce a second term--or by analogy, a second field--is not likely to be effective unless this second is more familiar or more obvious to the intended audience than is the first. To explain a new concept, we explain it in terms of familiar ones. To defend a questioned assertion, we show that it follows from accepted beliefs. To defend a contested action, we show that it follows from accepted goals. Arguably, the same general principle holds in mathematical proof, hard science, soft science, literature, rhetoric, jurisprudence, teaching, sales, and even in learning in general.

Within any particular science of well-defined scope, a scientist should and probably will avoid introducing outside metaphors needlessly. I expect that those sciences which permit the freest mixing of metaphors are most likely to be deficient in discipline and to run the greatest risk that those outside these fields will not consider them to be either scientific or disciplines.

Even so, let us not discount the value of these less-formal assertions, even within a science. For to introduce concepts not yet integrated into a formal system typically precedes the development of the formal system to encapsulate it; this is especially true in the more empirical sciences (such as biology) versus the more systematic sciences (such as mathematics, or even physics, in which mathematical formalisms facilitate thought experiments). And some of these new concepts will be just the thing needed, even 'apposite.' Yet initially they may strike some readers as unnecessarily strange, just as did the word 'apposite' when I encountered it this morning. (And does it help or hinder the reader if I explain that it was Chaitin's exposition of Goedel which first made clear to me that formal systems must be built chiefly through such encounters?)

Finally, let's remember that each person has several dimensions. A scientist may have not only a career but also a religion, moral or aesthetic values, and/or other such convictions under-determined by proof. She may enjoy, as the postmodernists are supposed to do, playing or creating intellectual games. She may be an artist. Her mind is also host to various other ideas which are not likely to be classifiable by any accepted system. Yet these ideas may, especially if not advertised as mathematically derived and not forced upon others, be quite valuable, both privately and publicly. Any idea might be 'apposite' for a day.