yeah. I interpreted it closer to “impossible to do better” than “impossible to be perfect”. Looking back, the former is the more charitable interpretation.
I get this distinct feeling of having fallen for the fallacy of gray (cant be perfect == can’t do better).
Idiomatically speaking, I think you can usually parse “can’t be perfect” as a proxy for “should not aspire to the ideal, even if you accept that it can only be approached asymptotically”.
I don’t really have a clear idea of what boyi is even trying to say, so I’m not trying to square it with other posts.
The way I see it, “it’s impossible to make science live up to the ideals” is pretty bold. I’ll try to see a charitable interpretation.
I don’t know, there’s a general sense in which ideals are almost never reached.
yeah. I interpreted it closer to “impossible to do better” than “impossible to be perfect”. Looking back, the former is the more charitable interpretation.
I get this distinct feeling of having fallen for the fallacy of gray (cant be perfect == can’t do better).
Idiomatically speaking, I think you can usually parse “can’t be perfect” as a proxy for “should not aspire to the ideal, even if you accept that it can only be approached asymptotically”.