[js1138]

Yep, the ol' "slice and dice" approach among all the specialities. As the poet said, "We murder to dissect." In the end, it's like the blind men trying to decide what an elephant looks like. One grabs the tail, and says the elephant is like a tail. One feels the trunk, and says the elephant looks like a trunk. Another has found the elephant's leg, and says the elephant is like a leg....

You are immune to my point.

There is no way to look at an elephant, complete and whole. You cannot understand an elephant without understanding its biology, physics, and chemistry. You cannot understand it without understanding the position of the earth in the solar system. You cannot understand it without understanding its ecosystem. You cannot understand it without observing its behavior, both personal and social.

People have limitations. They are not omniscient. Scientists break things into managable pieces for study. They apply methodologies appropriate to the scale of analysis. Real science is often tedious, even boring.

Out of this, science writers, poets and philosophers try to derive metaphors that speak to ordinary non-specialists. All such metaphors are incomplete, and all become incorrect when extended. You are being intellectually lazy when you skip the science and argue from popular writings or reviews of literature. All such writing has limitations and most of it is easily overextended.

[betty boop]

You are being intellectually lazy when you skip the science and argue from popular writings or reviews of literature. All such writing has limitations and most of it is easily overextended.

I am not advocating "skipping the science," js. I was suggesting that even science has its limits.