That’s stupid. After reflecting on the problem of inferential distance, I could believe that someone could reasonably respond that they didn’t understand what the quote was trying to say, but the form of the rhetoric should have made clear that the literal meaning was not the one meant.
My first reaction was “lolwut”. I see where you’re coming from, but it still just feels wrong, as if I were missing the point. The non-God-repudiating scientist is not just lying to others, but lying to herself, and that is incompatible with the serious pursuit of truth.
I know it’s a leaky generalization, that there are obvious exceptions and edge cases, but that’s true of all English sentences and especially true of those that are composed for pithiness and rhetoric, that is, the ones that make good quotes.
(Edit: I had originally linked “serious” above here, but I like the current pothole better.)
This one did all right.
The intended point is that it is not sufficient to be a scientist only while in the laboratory.
That’s stupid. After reflecting on the problem of inferential distance, I could believe that someone could reasonably respond that they didn’t understand what the quote was trying to say, but the form of the rhetoric should have made clear that the literal meaning was not the one meant.
My first reaction was “lolwut”. I see where you’re coming from, but it still just feels wrong, as if I were missing the point. The non-God-repudiating scientist is not just lying to others, but lying to herself, and that is incompatible with the serious pursuit of truth.
I know it’s a leaky generalization, that there are obvious exceptions and edge cases, but that’s true of all English sentences and especially true of those that are composed for pithiness and rhetoric, that is, the ones that make good quotes.
(Edit: I had originally linked “serious” above here, but I like the current pothole better.)
I honestly expected a link to Outside the Laboratory.
That’s what I had in mind, but for some reason when I googled for it the other thing came up instead.