Sunday, September 9, 2012

Not an Exact Science

"Drawing a composite sketch is not an exact science.  Pouring wine back into the bottle is not an exact science."

Really?  No fooling?  Die.

First of all, drawing is not any kind of science.  It's not an exact one.  It's not a complete one.  It's not a red one.  It's not a fat one.  The only kind of science that drawing might be is "non."

Secondly, science isn't an exact science.  It's the process of refining inherently imprecise and inaccurate models so that, given some starting data, they will yield increasingly useful predictions.  There's nothing exact about it.  It's fraught with inexactitudes and is designed to take them in stride.

Ironically, doing something like drawing a composite sketch is probably, and pouring wine back into the bottle is definitely, a more exact process than science is.

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